
Class JMlA£4if 

Book J\ . 2,X ^S 

Copyright W. 

V COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV 



I 

i 



OUE MUTUAL FRIEND 



II 



.^><mi 



o 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 



BY 



CHARLES DICKENS 



WITH FORTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARCUS STONE 



A KEPRINT OF THE EDITION CORRECTED BY THE 

AUTHOR IN 1869, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BIOGRAPHICAL 

AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL, BY CHARLES DICKENS 

THE YOUNGER 



MACMILLAN AND CO. 

AND LONDON 
1895 



All rights reserved 






Copyright, 1895, 
By MACMILLAN AND CO. 



Noriuooli ?J3rf33 

J S. Cusliiii}!; & Co. - Berwick & Smith 

Norwood Muss. U.S.A. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



THE BIRD OF PREY FvonUspiece 

PAGE 

WITNESSING THE AGREEMENT ....... 36 

AT THE BAR ........... 58 

MR. VENUS SURROUNDED BY THE TROPHIES OF HIS ART • . 75 

THE BOFFIN PROGRESS . .97 

THE HAPPY PAIR . • 116 

PODSNAPPERY . 123 

WAITING FOR FATHER 154 

THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN 164 

MRS. BOFFIN DISCOVERS AN ORPHAN 186 

THE PERSON OF THE HOUSE AND THE BAD CHILD . . . 226 

BRINGING HIM IN 239 

THE GARDEN ON THE ROOF ' . . 265 

FORMING THE DOMESTIC VIRTUES . 276 

pa's LODGER AND Pa's DAUGHTER 295 

OUR JOHNNY 312 

MISS RIDERHOOD AT HOME ........ 337 

MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE 354 

THE BOOFER LADY 373 

A FRIEND IN NEED 387 

TRYING ON FOR THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER ..... 417 

ROGUE RIDERHOOd's RECOVERY ....... 427 

vii 



viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

bibliomania of the golden dustman 447 

the dutch bottle 469 

the evil genius of the house of boffin .... 482 

the flight 489 

" threepenn'orth rum" 517 

mr. fledgeby departs on his errand of mercy . . . 539 

MR. WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR. BOFFIN's NOSE . 559 

BELLA "righted" BY THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN .... 565 

THE LOVELY WOMAN HAS HER FORTUNE TOLD .... 591 

IN THE lock-keeper's HOUSE ....... 614 

the wedding dinner at greenwich ..... 641 

the parting by the river ....... 667 

better to be abel than cain 683 

miss wren fixes her idea 705 

Eugene's bedside 721 

lightwood at last ......... 727 

mr. boffin does the honours of the nursery door . . 747 

not to be shaken off 769 






INTRODUCTION. 



Although tlie title of this book was settled in 1861, the 
publication of the first number did not take place until three 
years afterwards. The intermediate time Avas filled up with 
editorial duties on All the Year Round; with the second 
round of public Readings; with the production of many 
papers of the TJyicommercial Traveller series ; and with inter- 
mittent work on the new story itself, which appears to have 
progressed but slowly, and to have cost its author no small 
amount of pains and trouble. His intention had been to 
begin to publish in 1862, but in April of that year he had 
to write, •' Alas ! I have hit upon nothing for a story. Again 
and again I have tried.-' No greater amount of success 
seems to have attended his efforts for several months, and 
it was not until August, 1863, that he was able to report 
himself as being " full of notions for the new twenty num- 
bers." A few weeks later he wrote from Gadshill, " I came 
here last night to evade my usual day in the week — in fact 
to shirk it — and get back to Gads for five or six consecutive 
days. My reason is, that I am exceedingly anxious to begin 
my book. I ^m bent upon getting to work at it. I want to 
prepare it for the spring ; but I am determined not to begin 
to publish with less than five numbers done. I see my 
opening perfectly, with the one main line on which the story 
is to turn; and if I don't strike while the iron (meaning 
myself) is hot, I shall drift off again, and have to go through 
all this uneasiness once more." 

Vigorous striking of the iron while it was hot resulted in 
the production of about three numbers in four months, but 
Charles Dickens would not be satisfied until he had in hand 
those five numbers which he had determined to hold in stock, 
so to speak, before making a start with the publication of 
the book. " If I were to lose," he wrote in March, " a page 
of the five numbers I have proposed to myself to be ready 
by the publication day, I should feel that I had fallen short. 
I have grown hard to satisfy, and write very slowly, and I 

ix 



^.- INTRODUCTION. 

d SO mucli — not fiction — that will be thought of, when 
jjjp-ion't want to think of it, that I am forced to take more 
care than I once took." 

At last, on the 1st of May, 1864, the first number of Our 
Mutual Friend was published. The book made a most en- 
couraging start. Two days after the publication of number 
one, Charles Dickens wrote: "Nothing can be better than 
Our Friend, now in his thirtieth thousand, and orders flow- 
ing in fast." The sale of the second number did not keep up 
to this level, a fall of five thousand interrupting the career 
of success for a time, but after a while the thirty thousand 
were again reached, and a steady sale of a considerably 
larger number was thenceforward maintained to the end. 

The work, unfortunately, was difficult and severe through- 
out. Three numbers only had been published when Charles 
Dickens had to write : " Although I have not been wanting 
in industry, I have been wanting in invention,^ and have 
fallen back with the book. Looming large before me is the 
Christmas work, and I can hardly hope to do it without 
losing a number of Our Friend. I have very nearly lost 
one already, and two would take one-half of my whole ad- 
vance. This week I have been very nnwell ; am still out 
of sorts, and as I know from two days' slow experience, have 
a very mountain to climb before I shall see the open country 
of my work." The same note had to be struck again only 
a few weeks afterwards. " I have not done my number. 
This death of poor Leech ^ (I suppose) has put me out woe- 
fully. Yesterday and the day before I could do nothing ; 
seemed for the time to have quite lost the power, and am 
only by slow degrees getting back into the track to-day." 

Then came illness, and on the 9th of June, 1865, the terrible 
railway accident at Staplehurst, from the effects of the shock 
of which Charles Dickens, although he received no actual 
personal injury, may be said never to have altogether re- 
covered. Of course, by this time, the stock of numbers in 
advance had disappeared, and the book had then to be 
written in the old hand to mouth fashion until its comple- 
tion five months later. 

The twenty numbers in which Our Mutual Friend had 
been originally published were reissued in two volumes, 
cloth, at twenty-two shillings, by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, 

1 " Invention," he had written from Lausanne in 1846, "thank 
God, seems the easiest thing in the world." 

- John Leech died on the 29th of November, 1864. 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

in November, 1865, and, for the first time since Pickwick — 
with the exception of the Cruikshank etchings to Oliver 
Twist — the ilkistrations were not by Hablot Browne. His 
place was taken by Marcus Stone, now E,. A., who furnished 
twenty pictures and the design for the green wrapper, which 
to some extent, though not so fully as had sometimes been 
the case in former days, foreshadowed some of the principal 
events of the story. A facsimile of the front page of the 
wrapper will be found at page xvii of this introduction, and 
one of the illustrations which served as frontispiece at page 
iv. 

In some of the introductions to previous volumes of the 
present edition, I have given instances of the extreme care 
which Charles Dickens devoted to the minutest details of 
the illustrations to his books. The following letter to Marcus 
Stone may serve as another example : — 

57 Gloucester Place, Hyde Park, 

Tuesday, Feb. 23d, 1864. 

My Dear Marcus : — I think the design for the cover excellent, 
and do not doubt its coming out to perfection. The slight altera- 
tion I am going to suggest originates in a business consideration 
not to be overlooked. 

The word " Our " in the title must be out in the open like 
" Mutual Friend," making the title three distinct large lines — 
"Our" as big as "Mutual Friend." This would give you too 
much design at the bottom. I would, therefore, take out the dust- 
man, and put the Wegg and Boffin composition (which is capital) 
in its place. I don't want Mr. Inspector or the murder reward 
bill, because these points are sufficiently indicated in the river at 
the top. Therefore, you can have an indication of the dustman 
in Mr. Inspector's place. Note, that the dustman's face should be 
droll, and not horrible. Twemlow's elbow will still go out of the 
frame as it does now, and the same with Lizzie's skirts on the oppo- 
site side. With these changes, work away ! 

Mrs. Boffin, as I judge of her from the sketch, " very good, in- 
deed." I want Boffin's oddity, without being at all blinked, to be 
an oddity of a very honest kind, that people will like. 

The doll's dressmaker is immensel}'^ better than she was. I 
think she should now come extremely well. A weird sharpness 
not without beauty is the thing I want. 

Affectionately always, 

In the original edition was inserted a slip, which contained 
the following notice : — 

*^* The reader will understand the use of the popular phrase 
" Our Mutual Friend," as the title of this book, on arriving at the 
ninth chapter (p. 84). 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

Our Mutual Friend came lifth in the third series of cheap 
editions, and was published, in cloth five shillings, in 1867. 
The Household Edition, published in numbers 181-207, in 
1875, occupied 420 pages, in paper covers three shillings, in 
cloth four shillings, and contained fifty-eight illustrations 
by J. Mahoney. 

The original manuscript, which was x^resented by Charles 
Dickens to Mr. E. S. Dallas, of the Times newspaper, is now 
in the library of Mr. George W. Childs, of Philadelphia. 

The dedication ran as follows : — ■ 

THIS BOOK 
IS INSCRIBED BY ITS AUTHOR 

TO 
SIR JAMES EMERSON TENNENT 

AS 
A MEMORIAL OF FRIENDSHIP. 

The place of a preface was taken by the following : — 
POSTSCKIPT 

IN LIEU OF PREFACE. 

When I devised this story, I foresaw the likelihood that a class 
of readers and commentators would suppose that 1 was at great 
pains to correct exactly what I was at great pains to suggest: 
namely, that Mr. John Harmon was not slain, and that Mr. John 
Rokesmith was he. Pleasing myselt with the idea that the sup- 
position might in part arise out of some ingenuity in the stoiy, 
and thinking it worth while, in the interests of art, to hint to an 
audience that an artist (of whatever denomination) may perhaps 
be trusted to know what he is about in his vocation, if they will 
concede him a little patience, I was not alarmed by the anticipation. 

To keep for a long time unsuspected, yet always workhig itself 
out, another purpose originating in that leading incident, and 
turning it to a pleasant and useful account at last, was at once the 
most interesting and the most difficult part of my design. Its dif- 
ficulty was much enhanced by the mode of publication; for, it 
would be very unreasonable to expect that many readers, pursuing 
a story in portions from month to month through nineteen months, 
will, until they have it before them complete, perceive the rela- 
tions of its finer threads to the whole pattern which is always 
before the eyes of the story-weaver at his loom. Yet, that I hold 
the advantages of the mode of publication to outweigli its disad- 
vantages, may be easily believed of one who revived it m the Pick- 
wick Papers after long disuse, and has pursued it ever since. 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

There is sometimes an odd disposition in this country to dis- 
pute as improbable in tiction, what are the commonest experiences 
in fact. Therefore, I note here, thougii it may not be at all neces- 
sary, that there are hundreds of Will Cases (as they are called), 
far more remarkable than that fancied in this book ; and that the 
stores of the Prerogative Office teem with instances of testators 
who have made, changed, contradicted, hidden, forgottenj left can- 
celled, and left uncancelled, each many more wills than were ever 
made by the elder Mr. Harmon of Harmony Jail. 

In my social experiences since Mrs. Betty Higden came upon 
the scene and left it, I have found Circumlocutional champions 
disposed to be warm with me on the subject of my view of the 
Poor Law. My friend Mr. Bounderby could never see any differ- 
ence between leaving the Coketown " hands " exactly as they were, 
and requiring them to be fed with turtle soup and venison out of 
gold spoons. Idiotic propositions of a parallel nature have been 
freely offered for my acceptance, and I have been called upon to 
admit that I would give Poor Law relief to anybody, anywhere, 
anyhow. Putting this nonsense aside, I have observed a suspicious 
tendency m the champions to divide into two parties; the one, 
contending that there are no deserving Poor who prefer deatn by 
slow starvation and bitter weather, to the mercies ot some Reliev- 
ing Officers and some Union Houses ; the other, admitting that 
there are such Poor but denying that they have any cause or reason 
for what they do. The records in our newspapers, the late ex- 
posure by The Lancet, and the common sense and senses of com- 
mon people, furnish too abundant evidence against both defences. 
But that my view of the Poor Law may not be mistaken or mis- 
represented, I will state it. I believe there has been in England, 
since the days of the Stuarts, no law so often infamously admin- 
istered, no law so often openly violated, no law habitually so ill- 
supervised. In the majority of the shameful cases of disease and 
death from destitution, that shock the public and disgrace the 
country, the illegality is quite equal to the inhumanity — and 
known language could say no more of their lawlessness. 

On Friday the ninth of June in the present year, Mr. and Mrs. 
Boffin (ill their manuscript dress of receiving ^Ir. and Mrs. Lammle 
at breakfast) were in the South Eastern Railway with me, in a 
terribly destructive accident. When I had done what I could to 
help others, I climbed back into my carriage — nearly turned over 
a viaduct and caught aslant upon the turn — to extricate the 
worthy couple. They were much soiled but otherwise unhurt. 
The same happy result attended Miss Bella Wilfer on her wed- 
ding day, and Mr. Riderhood inspecting Bradley Headstone's red 
neckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember witli devout thankful- 
ness that I can never be mucn nearer parting company with my 
readers for ever, than I was then, until there shall be written 
against my life, the two words with which I have this day closed 
this book : The End. 

September 2d, 1865. 



xiv INTRODUCTION. 

As an example of the unfair and spiteful criticism to 
wliicli Charles Dickens was so often subjected, the follow- 
ing extract from an article in the Westminster Review of 
April, 1866, may be quoted : " We believe that all England 
would have been deeply shocked had Mr. Dickens been 
killed in the Staplehurst accident. But many minds will 
be equally shocked by the melodramatic way in which he 
speaks of his escape. Those who are curious to understand 
the tricks of his style should analyse the last section. He 
first endeavours to raise a joke about Mr. and Mrs. Lammle 
' in their manuscript dress,' and his other fictitious charac- 
ters being rescued from the railway carriage, and then turns 
oft' to moralise and improve upon his own escape, conclud- 
ing the whole with a theatrical tag about ' The End,' which 
refers both to the conclusion of the book and his life. We 
write this in no carping spirit, but because it so fully ex- 
plains to us the cause of Mr. Dickens's failures — a want of 
sincerity, and a determination to raise either a laugh or a 
tear at the expense of the most sacred of things." 

Charles Dickens insincere ! Charles Dickens raising a 
laugh at the expense of the most sacred of things ! Surely 
this was the very Dogberry of critics, and, " though it be 
not written down," yet it is not difficult to characterise him 
aright in the simple word of three letters which so exer- 
cised the mind of the immortal constable of Messina. 

Although the sale of Our Mutual Friend was, as we have 
seen, very large, and the book became very popular in its 
time, it received a considerable amount of mauling at the 
hands of the critics, and has, it may be said, never quite 
attained the high-water mark of the greatest Dickens suc- 
cesses. A critic in the Dublin Review, in 1871, coupled it 
with Little Dorrit in a sledge-hammer notice which ought to 
have done — but, somehow, did not succeed in doing — tlie 
business of both books for ever. "Little Dorrit and Our 
Mutual Frierid," this gentleman said, "are the only two 
books which leave no impression of humour upon the reader's 
mind, which present him with nothing but caricatures. We 
do not want to remember them, or any of the people in 
them." The West^minster Review critic whom I have already 
quoted declared that "to attempt to alter the Poor Law by a 
novel is about as absurd as it would be to call out the militia 
to stop the cattle disease," but the statement, though pos- 
sibly smart, is certainly misleading, besides being strangely 
at variance with Mr. Forster's reference to " those short and 



INTRODUCTION. xv 

simple annals of Betty Higclen's life and death which might 
have given saving virtue to a book more likely than this to 
perish prematurely," as well as to his statement that " Betty 
Higden finishes what Oliver Twist began." In truth, I 
think the sober and more calm judgment of these later 
days will pronounce both critics to be wrong. Charles 
Dickens had no absurd idea that he would be able to alter 
the Poor Law by a novel ; and the Oliver Twist attack on 
the workhouse system, as it then was, formed part of the 
plan and essence of the book, while Mrs. Betty Higden is 
merely an excrescence on the story of Our Mutual Friend, 
and the book would go on just as well — possibly a good 
deal better — without her. 

Another character in the book was drawn with a purpose, 
and certainly seems open to a grave charge of artificiality. 
A Jewish lady having written to Charles Dickens remon- 
strating — rather late in the day, it must be owned — against 
what she called the injustice he had shown to the Jews in 
drawing the character of Fagin, and asking for a subscrip- 
tion for the benefit of a Jewish charity, Charles Dickens 
replied as follows : — 

Friday, July 10th, 1863. 

Dear Madam : — I hope you will excuse this tardy reply to your 
letter. It is often impossible for me, by any means, to keep pace 
with my correspondents. I must take leave to say, that if there 
be any general feeling on the part of the intelligent Jewish people, 
that I have done them what you describe as " a great wrong," they 
are a far less sensible, a far less just, and a far less good-tempered 
people than I have always supposed them to be. Fagin in " Oliver 
Twist " is a Jew, because it unfortunately was true of the time to 
which that story refers, that that class of criminal almost inva- 
riably was a Jew. But surely, no sensible man or woman of your 
persuasion can fail to observe — firstly, that all the rest of the 
wicked dramatis personce are Christians ; and secondly, that he is 
called the " Jew," not because of his religion, but because of his 
race. If I were to write a story, in which I described a Frenchman 
or a Spaniard as " the Roman Catholic," I should do a very indecent 
and unjustifiable thing; but I make mention of Fagin as the Jew, 
because he is one of the Jewish people, and because it conveys that 
kind of idea of him, which I should give my readers of a China- 
man, by calling him a Chinese. 

The enclosed is quite a nominal subscription towards the good 
object in which you are interested ; but I hope it may serve to show 
you that I have no feeling towards the Jewish people but a friendly 
one. I always speak well of them, whether in public or in private, 
and bear my testimony (as I ought to do) to their perfect good 



xvi INTRODUCTION. 

faith in such transactions as I have ever had with them ; and in 
my " Child's History of England," I have lost no opportunity of 
setting forth their cruel persecution in old times. 

Dear Madam, faithfully yours. 

In acknowledging Charles Dickens's subscription, the 
Jewish lady returned to the charge, and pointed out that 
although it was true that " all the other criminal characters 
were Christians, they are, at least, contrasted with charac- 
ters of good Christians ; this wretched Fagin stands alone 
as the Jew." 

For some not very obvious reason, the Jewish lady's re- 
monstrances worked so strongly on Charles Dickens's feel- 
ings that the invention of Mr. Riah was the not very happy 
result. 

Of dramatic versions of Our Mutual Friend the most 
important appears to have been one which was produced 
under the title The Golden Dustman, at one of the theatres 
at the East End of London, but, as I did not see it and have 
been unable to find any trace of it in any printed form, I am 
unable to give any account of it. 

CHAELES DICKERS 

THE YOUNGER. 



[facsimile of original wrapper.] 



No. 1. 



I/LAT, 1864. 



Price Is. 




LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, PICCADILLY. 



Tlie right of Translation is rcservect. 



[facsimile of original title page.] 

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



WITt^JtLUSTRATIONS BY MARCUS STONE. 



TN TWO VOLUMES. 
VOL. I. 



LONDON: 
CHAPMAN AND HALL. 193 PICCADILLY. 

1865. 

{The right of Translation is reserved.] 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

In Jour 33oofe* 

BOOK THE FIRST.— TRU CUP AND THE 
LIP. 

CHAPTER I. 

ON THE LOOK-OUT. 

In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is 
no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, 
with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark 
Bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as 
an autumn evening was closing in. 

The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged 
grizzled hair and a sun-browned face, and a dark girl of nineteen 
or twenty, sufficiently like him to be recognisable as his daughter. 
The girl rowed, pulling a pair of sculls very easily ; the man, with 
the rudder-lines slack in his hands, and his hands loose in his waist- 
band, kept an eager look-out. He had no net, hook, or line, and 
he could not be a fisherman ; his boat had no cushion for a sitter, 
no paint, no inscription, no appliance beyond a rusty boat-hook and 
a coil of rope, and he could not be a waterman ; his boat was too 
crazy and too small to take in a cargo for delivery, and he could 
not be a lighterman or a river-carrier ; there was no clue to what he 
looked for, but he looked for something, with a most intent and 
searching gaze. The tide, which had turned an hour before, was 
running down, and his eyes watched every little race and eddy in its 
broad sweep, as the boat made slight headway against it, or drove 
stern foremost before it, according as he directed his daughter by 
a movement of his head. She watched his face as earnestly as 
she watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look there was 
a touch of dread or horror. 



2 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Allied to the bottom of the river rather than the surface, by 
reason of the slime and ooze with which it was covered, and its 
sodden state, this boat and the two figures in it obviously were 
doing something that they often did, and were seeking what they 
often sought. Half savage as the man showed, with no covering 
on his matted head, with his brown arms bare to between the elbow 
and the shoulder, with a loose knot of a looser kerchief lying low 
on his bare breast in a wilderness of beard and whisker, with such 
dress as he wore seeming to be made out of the mud that begrimed 
his boat, still there was business-like usage in his steady gaze. 
So with every lithe action of the girl, with every turn of her wrist, 
perhaps most of all with her look of dread or horror ; they were 
things of usage. 

" Keep her out, Lizzie. Tide runs strong here. Keep her well 
afore the sweep of it." 

Trusting to the girl's skill and making no use of the rudder, he 
eyed the coming tide with an absorbed attention. So the girl eyed 
him. But, it happened now, that a slant of light from the setting 
sun glanced into the bottom of the boat, and, touching a rotten 
stain there which bore some resemblance to the outline of a muffled 
human form, coloured it as though with diluted blood. This 
caught the girl's eye, and she shivered. 

"What ails you?" said the man, immediately aware of it, 
though so intent on the advancing waters ; " I see nothing afloat." 

The red light was gone, the shudder was gone, and his gaze, 
which had come back to the boat for a moment, travelled away 
again. Wheresoever the strong tide met with an impediment, his 
gaze paused for an instant. At every mooring chain and rope, at 
every stationary boat or barge that split the current into a broad- 
arrow-head, at the off'sets from the piers of Southwark Bridge, at 
the paddles of the river steamboats as they beat the filthy water, 
at the floating logs of timber lashed together lying off" certain 
wharves, his shining eyes darted a hungry look. After a darken- 
ing hour or so, suddenly the rudder-lines tightened in his hold, and 
he steered hard towards the Surrey shore. 

Always watching his face, the girl instantly answered to the 
action in the sculling ; presently the boat swung round, quivered 
as from a sudden jerk, and the upper half of the man w^as stretched 
out over the stern. 

The girl pulled the hood of a cloak she wore, over her head and 
over her face, and, looking backward so that the front folds of this 
hood were turned down the river, kept the boat in that direction 
going before the tide. Until now, the boat had barely held her 
own, and had hovered about one spot ; but now, the banks changed 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 3 

swiftly, and the deepening shadows and the kindling lights of 
London Bridge were passed, and the tiers of shipping lay on either 
hand. 

It was not until now that the upper half of the man came back 
into the boat. His arms were wet and dirty, and he washed them 
over the side. In his right hand he held something, and he washed 
that in the river too. It was money. He chinked it once, and he 
blew upon it once, and he spat upon it once, — "for luck," he 
hoarsely said — before he put it in his pocket. 

"Lizzie!" 

The girl turned her face towards him with a start, and rowed 
in silence. Her face was very pale. He was a hook-nosed man, 
and with that and his bright eyes and his ruffled head, bore a cer- 
tain likeness to a roused bird of prey. 

" Take that thing off your face." 

She put it back. 

" Here ! and give me hold of the sculls. I'll take the rest of 
the spell." 

" No, no, father ! No ! I can't indeed. Father ! — I cannot 
sit so near it ! " 

He was moving towards her to change places, but her terrified 
expostulation stoi}ped him and he resumed his seat. 

" What hurt can it do you ? " 

" None, none. But I cannot bear it." 

" It's my belief you hate the sight of the veiy river." 

" I — I do not like it, father." 

" As if it wasn't your living ! As if it wasn't meat and drink 
to you ! " 

At these latter words the girl shivered again, and for a moment 
paused in her rowing, seeming to turn deadly faint. It escaped his 
attention, for he was glancing over the stern at something the 
boat had in tow. 

" How can you be so thankless to your best friend, Lizzie ? The 
very fire that warmed you when you were a baby, was picked out 
of the river alongside the coal barges. The very basket that you 
slept in, the tide washed ashore. The very rockers that I put 
it upon to make a cradle of it, I cut out of a piece of wood that 
drifted from some ship or another." 

Lizzie took her right hand from the scull it held, and touched 
her lips with it, and for a moment held it out lovingly towards 
him ; then, without speaking, she resumed her rowing, as another 
boat of similar appearance, though in rather better trim, came out 
from a dark place and dropped softly alongside. 

" In luck again. Gaffer ? " said a man with a squinting leer, who 



4 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

sculled her, and who was alone. " I know'd you was in luck again, 
by your wake as you come down." 

" Ah ! " replied the other, drily. " So you're out, are you ? " 

"Yes, pardner." 

There was now a tender yellow moonlight on the river, and the 
newcomer, keeping half his boat's length astern of the other boat, 
looked hard at its track. 

"I says to myself," he went on, "directly you hove in view, 
Yonder's Gaffer, and in luck again, by George if he ain't ! Scull 
it is, pardner — don't fret yourself — I didn't touch him." This 
was in answer to a quick impatient movement on the part of 
Gaffer : the speaker at the same time unshipping his scull on that 
side, and laying his hand on the gunwale of Gaffer's boat and 
holding to it. 

" He's had touches enough not to want no more, as well as I 
make him out, Gaffer ! Been a knocking about with a pretty 
many tides, ain't he, pardner ? Such is my out-of-luck ways, you 
see ! He must have passed me when he went up last time, for I 
was on the look-out below bridge here. I a'most think you're like 
the wulturs, pardner, and scent 'em out." 

He spoke in a dropped voice, and with more than one glance at 
Lizzie, who had pulled on her hood again. Both men then looked 
with a weird unholy interest at the wake of Gaffer's boat. 

" Easy does it, betwixt us. Shall I take him aboard, pard- 
ner?" 

" No," said the other. In so surly a tone that the man, after a 
blank stare, acknowledged it with the retort : 

" — Arn't been eating nothing as has disagreed with you, have 
you, pardner?" 

" Why, yes, I have," said Gaffer. " I have been swallowing too 
much of that word, Pardner. I am no pardner of yours." 

" Since when was you no pardner of mine. Gaffer Hexam, 
Esquire ? " 

" Since you was accused of robbing a man. Accused of robbing 
a live man ! " said Gaffer, with great indignation. 

"And what if I had been accused of robbing a dead man, 
Gaffer?" 

"You couldn't do it." 

" Couldn't you. Gaffer?" 

" No. Has a dead man any use for money ? Is it possible for 
a dead man to have money 1 What world does a dead man belong 
to ? T'other "world. What world does money belong to ? This 
world. How can money be a corpse's ? Can a corpse own it, want 
it, spend it, claim it, miss it? Don't try to be confounding the 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 5 

rights and wrongs of things in that way. But it's worthy of the 
sneaking spirit that robs a live man." 

" I'll tell you what it is " 

" No, you won't. I'll tell you what it is. You've got off with 
a short time of it for putting your hand in the pocket of a sailor, 
a live sailor. Make the most of it and think yourself lucky, but 
don't think after that to come over me with your pardners. We 
have worked together in time past, but we work together no more 
in time present nor yet future. Let go. Cast off ! " 

" Gaffer ! If you think to get rid of me this way " 

" If I don't get rid of you this way, I'll try another, and chop 
you over the fingers with the stretcher, or take a pick at your head 
with the boat-hook. Cast off! Pull you, Lizzie. Pull home, 
since you won't let your father pull." 

Lizzie shot ahead, and the other boat fell astern. Lizzie's father, 
composing himself into the easy attitude of one who had asserted 
the high moralities and taken an unassailable position, slowly 
lighted a pipe, and smoked, and took a survey of what he had in 
tow. What he had in tow, lunged itself at him sometimes in an 
awful manner when the boat was checked, and sometimes seemed 
to try to wrench itself away, though for the most part it followed 
submissively. A neophyte might have fancied that the ripples 
passing over it were dreadfully like faint changes of expression on 
a sightless face ; but Gaflfer was no neophyte and had no fancies. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE. 

Mr. and Mrs. Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new 
house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the 
Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, 
all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate 
was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their 
horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were 
new, they were as newly married as was lawfully compatible with 
their having a bran-new baby, and if they had set up a great- 
grandfather, he would have come home in matting from the Pan- 
technicon, without a scratch upon him, French polished to the 
crown of his head. 

For, in the Veneering establishment, from the hall-chairs with 
the new coat of arms, to the grand pianoforte with the new action, 
and upstairs again to the new fire-escape, all things were in a 



6 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

state of high varnish and polish. And what was observable in 
the furniture, was observable in the Veneerings — the surface 
smelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky. 

There was an innocent piece of dinner-furniture that went upon 
easy castors and was kept over a livery stable-yard in Duke Street, 
Saint James's, when not in use, to whom the Veneerings were a 
source of blind confusion. The name of this article was Twemlow. 
Being first cousin to Lord Snigsworth, he was in frequent requisi- 
tion, and at many houses might be said to represent the dining- 
table in its normal state. Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, for example, 
arranging a dinner, habitually started with Twemlow, and then 
put leaves in him, or added guests to him. Sometimes, the table 
consisted of Twemlow and half-a-dozen leaves ; sometimes, of 
Twemlow and a dozen leaves ; sometimes, Twemlow was pulled 
out to his utmost extent of twenty leaves. Mr. and Mrs. Veneer- 
ing on occasions of ceremony faced each other in the centre of the 
board, and thus the parallel still held; for, it always happened 
that the more Twemlow was pulled out, the further he found him- 
self from the centre, and the nearer to the sideboard at one end of 
the room, or the window-curtains at the other. 

But, it was not this which steeped the feeble soul of Twemlow 
in confusion. This he was used to, and could take soundings of. 
The abyss to which he could find no bottom, and from which 
started forth the engrossing and ever-swelling difficulty of his life, 
was the insoluble question whether he was Veneering's oldest 
friend, or newest friend. To the excogitation of this problem, the 
harmless gentleman had devoted many anxious hours, both in his 
lodgings over the livery stable-yard, and in the cold gloom, favour- 
able to meditation, of Saint James's Square. Thus. Twemlow had 
first known Veneering at his club, where Veneering then knew 
nobody but the man who made them known to one another, who 
seemed to be the most intimate friend he had in the world, and 
whom he had known two days — the bond of union between their 
souls, the nefiirious conduct of the committee respecting the cookery 
of a fillet of veal, having been accidentally cemented at that date. 
Immediately upon this, Twemlow received an invitation to dine 
with Veneering, and dined : the man being of the party. Immedi- 
ately upon that, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with the 
man, and dined : Veneering being of the party. At the man's were 
a Member, an Engineer, a Payer- off" of the National Debt, a Poem 
on Shakespeare, a Grievance, and a Public Ofiice, who all seemed 
to be utter strangers to Veneering. And yet immediately after 
that, Twemlow received an invitation to dine at Veneering's, 
expressly to meet the Member, the Engineer, the Payer-off of the 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 7 

National Debt, the Poem on Shakespeare, the Grievance, and the 
Public Office, and, dining, discovered that all of them were 
the most intimate friends Veneering had in the world, and that 
the wives of all of them (who were all there) were the objects of 
Mrs. Veneering's most devoted affection and tender confidence. 

Thus it had come about, that Mr. Twemlow had said to himself in 
his lodgings, with his hand to his forehead : "I must not think of 
this. This is enough to soften any man's brain," — and yet was 
always thinking of it, and could never form a conclusion. 

This evening the Veneerings give a banquet. Eleven leaves in 
the Twemlow ; fourteen in company all told. Four pigeon-breasted 
retainers in plain clothes stand in line in the hall. A fifth retainer, 
proceeding up the staircase with a mournful air — as who should 
say, " Here is another wretched creature come to dinner ; such is 
life ! " — announces, " Mis-ter Twemlow ! " 

Mrs, Veneering welcomes her sweet Mr. Twemlow. Mr. Veneer- 
ing welcomes his dear Twemlow. Mrs. Veneering does not expect 
that Mr. Twemlow can in nature care much for such insipid things 
as babies, but so old a friend must please look at baby. "Ah! 
You will know the friend of your family better, Tootleums," says 
Mr. Veneering, nodding emotionally at that new article, " when you 
begin to take notice." He then begs to make his dear Twemlow 
known to his two friends, Mr. Boots and Mr. Brewer — and clearly 
has no distinct idea which is which. 

But now a fearful circumstance occurs. 

" Mis-ter and Mis-sis Podsnap ! " 

"My dear," says Mr. Veneering to Mrs. Veneering, with an air 
of much friendly interest, while the door stands open, " the 
Podsnaps." 

A too, too smiling large man, with a fatal freshness on him, 
appearing with his wife, instantly deserts his wife and darts at 
Twemlow with : 

" How do you do ? So glad to know you. Charming house you 
have here. I hope we are not late. So glad of this opportunity, 
I am sure ! " 

When the first shock fell upon him, Twemlow twice skipped 
back in his neat little shoes and his neat little silk stockings of a 
bygone fashion, as if impelled to leap over a sofa behind him ; but 
the large man closed with him and proved too strong. 

" Let me," says the large man, trying to attract the attention of his 
wife in the distance, " have the pleasure of presenting Mrs, Podsnap 
to her host. She will be," in his fatal freshness he seems to find 
perpetual verdure and eternal youth in the phrase, " she will be so 
glad of the opportunity, I am sure ! " 



8 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

In the meantime, Mrs. Podsnap, unable to originate a mistake 
on her own account, because Mrs. Veneering is the only other lady- 
there, does her best in the way of handsomely supporting her hus- 
band's by looking towards Mr. Twemlow with a plaintive counte- 
nance and remarking to Mrs, Veneering in a feeling manner, firstly, 
that she fears he has been rather bilious of late, and, secondly, that 
the baby is already very like him. 

It is questionable whether any man quite relishes being mistaken 
for any other man ; but Mr. Veneering having this very evening 
set up the shirt-front of the young Antinous (in new worked cam- 
bric just come home), is not at all complimented by being supposed 
to be Twemlow, who is dry and weazen and some thirty years 
older. Mrs. Veneering equally resents the imputation of being 
the wife of Twemlow. As to Twemlow, he is so sensible of being 
a much better bred man than Veneering, that he considers the 
large man an offensive ass. 

In this complicated dilemma, Mr. Veneering approaches the 
large man with extended hand, and smilingly assures that incor- 
rigible personage that he is delighted to see him : who in his fatal 
freshness instantly replies : 

"Thank you. I am ashamed to say that I cannot at this 
moment recall where we met, but I am so glad of this opportunity, 
I am sure ! " 

Then pouncing upon Twemlow, who holds back with all his feeble 
might, he is haling him off to present him, as Veneering, to Mrs. 
Podsnap, when the arrival of more guests unravels the mistake. 
Whereupon, having reshaken hands with Veneering as Veneering, he 
reshakes hands with Twemlow as Twemlow, and winds it all up to 
his own perfect satisfaction by saying to the last named, " Ridicu- 
lous opportunity — but so glad of it, I am sure ! " 

Now, Twemlow having undergone this terrific experience, having 
likewise noted the fusion of Boots in Brewer and Brewer in Boots, 
and having further observed that of the remaining seven guests 
four discreet characters enter with wandering eyes and wholly 
decline to commit themselves as to which is Veneering, until 
Veneering has them in his grasp ; — Twemlow having profited by 
these studies, finds his brain wholesomely hardening as he approaches 
the conclusion that he really is Veneering's oldest friend, when his 
brain softens again and all is lost, through his eyes encountering 
Veneering and the large man linked together as twin brothers in 
the back drawing-room near the conservatory door, and through 
his ears informing him in the tones of Mrs. Veneering that the 
same large man is to be baby's godfather. 

" Dinner is on the table ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 9 

Thus the melancholy retainer, as who should say, " Come down 
and be poisoned, ye unhappy chfldren of men ! " 

Twemlow, having no lady assigned him, goes down in the rear, 
with his hand to his forehead. Boots and Brewer, thinking him 
indisposed, whisper, "Man faint. Had no lunch." But he is only 
stunned by the unvanquishable difficulty of his existence. 

Kevived by soup, Twemlow discourses mildly of the Court Circu- 
lar with Boots and Brewer. Is appealed to, at the fish stage of 
the banquet, by Veneering, on the disputed question whether his 
cousin Lord Snigsworth is in or out of town 1 Gives it that his 
cousin is out of town. "At Snigsworthy Park?" Veneering 
inquires. " At Snigsworthy," Twemlow rejoins. Boots and Brewer 
regard this as a man to be cultivated ; and Veneering is clear 
that he is a remunerative article. Meantime the retainer goes round, 
like a gloomy Analytical Chemist; always seeming to say, after 
"Chablis, sir?" — "You wouldn't if you knew what it's made 
of." 

The great looking-glass above the sideboard reflects the table 
and the company. Reflects the new Veneering crest, in gold and 
eke in silver, frosted and also thawed, a camel of all work. The 
Herald's College found out a Crusading ancestor for Veneering who 
bore a camel on his shield (or might have done it if he had thought 
of it), and a caravan of camels take charge of the fruits and flowers 
and candles, and kneel down to be loaded with the salt. Reflects 
Veneering; forty, wavy-haired, dark, tending to corpulence, sly, 
mysterious, filmy — a kind of sufiiciently well-looking veiled- 
prophet, not prophesying. Reflects Mrs. Veneering ; fair, aquiline- 
nosed and fingered, not so much light hair as she might have, 
gorgeous in raiment and jewels, enthusiastic, propitiatory, conscious 
that a corner of her husband's veil is over herself. Reflects 
Podsnap ; prosperously feeding, two little light-coloured wiry wings, 
one on either side of his else bald head, looking as like his hair- 
brushes as his hair, dissolving view of red beads on his forehead, 
large allowance of crumpled shirt-collar up behind. Reflects Mrs. 
Podsnap ; fine woman for Professor Owen, quantity of bone, neck 
and nostrils like a rocking-horse, hard features, majestic head-dress 
in which Podsnap has hung golden offerings. Reflects Twemlow ; 
grey, dry, polite, susceptible to east wind, First-Gentleman-in- 
Europe collar and cravat, cheeks drawn in as if he had made a 
great effort to retire into himself some years ago, and had got so 
far and had never got any farther. Reflects mature young lady ; 
raven locks, and complexion that lights up well when well-powdered 
— as it is — ■ carrying on considerably in the captivation of mature 
young gentleman ; with too much nose in his face, too much ginger 



10 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

in his whiskers, too much torso in his waistcoat, too much sparkle 
in his studs, his eyes, his buttons, his talk, and his teeth. Reflects 
charming old Lady Tippins on Veneeriug's right ; with an immense 
obtuse drab oblong face, like a face in a tablespoon, and a dyed 
Long Walk up the top of her head, as a convenient public approach 
to the bunch of false hair behind, pleased to patronise Mrs. 
Veneering opposite, who is pleased to be patronised. Reflects a 
certain " Mortimer," another of Veneering's oldest friends ; who 
never was in the house before, and appears not to want to come 
again, who sits disconsolate on Mrs. Veneering's left, and who was 
inveigled by Lady Tippins (a friend of his boyhood) to come to 
these people's and talk, and who won't talk. Reflects Eugene, 
friend of Mortimer; buried alive in the back of his chair, behind a 
shoulder — with a powder-epaulette on it — of the mature young 
lady, and gloomily resorting to the champagne chalice whenever 
proffered by the Analytical Chemist. Lastly, the looking-glass 
reflects Boots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed 
between the rest of the company and possible accidents. 

The Veneering dinners are excellent dinners — or new people 
wouldn't come — and all goes well. Notably, Lady Tippins has 
made a series of experiments on her digestive functions, so extremely 
complicated and daring, that if they could be published with their 
results it might benefit the human race. Having taken in pro- 
visions from all parts of the world, this hardy old cruiser has last 
touched at the North Pole, when, as the ice-plates are being removed, 
the following words fall from her : 

" I assure you, my dear Veneering " 

(Poor Twemlow's hand approaches his forehead, for it would 
seem now, that Lady Tippins is going to be the oldest friend.) 

" I assure you, my dear Veneering, that it is the oddest affair ! 
Like the advertising people, I don't ask you to trust me, without 
offering a respectable reference. Mortimer there, is my reference, 
and knows all about it." 

Mortimer raises his drooping eyelids, and slightly opens his 
mouth. But a faint smile, expressive of " What's the use ! " 
passes over his face, and he drops his eyelids and shuts his mouth. 

" Now, Mortimer," says Lady Tippins, rapping the sticks of her 
closed green fan upon the knuckles of her left hand — which is 
particularly rich in knuckles, " I insist upon your telling all that 
is to be told about the man from Jamaica." 

" Give you my honour I never heard of any man from Jamaica, 
except the man who was a brother," replies Mortimer. 

" Tobago, then." 

" Nor yet from Tobago." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 11 

"Except," Eugene strikes in : so unexpectedly that the mature 
young lady, who has forgotten all about him, with a start takes 
the epaulette out of his way : " except our friend who long lived 
on rice-pudding and isinglass, till at length to his something or 
other, his physician said something else, and a leg of mutton 
somehow ended in daygo." 

A reviving impression goes round the table that Eugene is coming 
out. An unfulfilled impression, for he goes in again. 

" Now, my dear Mrs. Veneering," quoth Lady Tippins, " I appeal 
to you whether this is not the basest conduct ever known in this 
world 1 I carry my lovers about, two or three at a time, on condition 
that they are very obedient and devoted ; and here is my old lover- 
in-chief, the head of all my slaves, throwing off his allegiance before 
company ! And here is another of my lovers, a rough Cymon at 
present, certainly, but of whom I had most hopeful expectations as 
to his turning out well in course of time, pretending that he can't 
remember his nursery rhymes ! On purpose to annoy me, for he 
knows how I dote upon them ! " 

A grisly little fiction concerning her lovers is Lady Tippins's 
point. She is always attended by a lover or two, and she keeps a 
little list of her lovers, and she is always booking a new lover, 
or striking out an old lover, or putting a lover in her black list, or 
promoting a lover to her blue list, or adding up her lovers, or 
otherwise posting her book. Mrs. Veneering is charmed by the 
humour, and so is Veneering. Perhaps it is enhanced by a cer- 
tain yellow play in Lady Tippins's throat, like the legs of scratch- 
ing poultry. 

" I banish the false wretch from this moment, and I strike him 
out of my Cupidon (my name for my Ledger, my dear) this very- 
night. But I am resolved to have the account of the man from 
Somewhere, and I beg you to ehcit it for me, my love," to Mrs. 
Veneering, " as I have lost my own influence. Oh, you perjured 
man ! " This to Mortimer, with a rattle of her fan. 

"We are all very much interested in the man from Somewhere," 
Veneering observes. 

Then the four Buffers, taking heart of grace all four at once, say : 
'" Deeply interested ! " 
" Quite excited ! " 
" Dramatic ! " 
" Man from Nowhere, perhaps ! " 

And then Mrs. Veneering — for Lady Tippins's winning wiles 
are contagious — folds her hands in the manner of a supplicating 
child, turns to her left neighbour, and says, " Tease ! Pay ! Man 
from Tumwhere ! " At which the four Buffers, again mysteriously 
moved all four at once, exclaim, " You can't resist ! " 



12 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Upon my life," says Mortimer, languidly, " I find it immensely 
embarrassing to have the eyes of Europe upon me to this extent, and 
my only consolation is that you will all of you execrate Lady Tippins 
in your secret hearts when you find, as you inevitably will, the 
man from Somewhere a bore. Sorry to destroy romance by fixing 
him with a local habitation, but he comes from the place, the name 
of which escapes me, but will suggest itself to everybody else here, 
where they make the wine." 

Eugene suggests " Day and Martin's." 

"No, not that place," returns the unmoved Mortimer, "that's 
where they make the Port. My man comes from the country 
where they make the Cape Wine. But look here, old fellow ; it's 
not at all statistical and it's rather odd." 

It is always noticeable at the table of the Veneerings, that no 
man troubles himself much about the Veneerings themselves, and 
that any one who has anything to tell, generally tells it to anybody 
else in preference. 

"The man," Mortimer goes on, addressing Eugene, "whose 
name is Harmon, was only son of a tremendous old rascal who 
made his money by Dust." 

" Red velveteens and a bell ? " the gloomy Eugene inquires. 

"And a ladder and basket if you like. By which means, or 
by others, he grew rich as a Dust Contractor, and lived in a hollow 
in a hilly country entirely composed of Dust. On his own small 
estate the growling old vagabond threw up his own mountain 
range, like an old volcano, and its geological formation was Dust. 
Coal-dust, vegetable-dust, bone-dust, crockery-dust, rough dust and 
sifted dust — all manner of Dust." 

A passing remembrance of Mrs. Veneering, here induces Morti- 
mer to address his next half-dozen w^ords to her ; after which he 
wanders away again, tries Twemlow and finds he doesn't answer, 
ultimately takes up with the Buffers, who receive him enthusi- 
astically. 

"The moral being — I believe that's the right expression — 
of this exemplary person, derived its highest gratification from 
anathematising his nearest relations and turning them out of doors. 
Having begun (as was natural) by rendering these attentions to 
the wife of his bosom, he next found himself at leisure to bestow 
a similar recognition on the claims of his daughter. He chose a 
husband for her, entirely to his own satisfaction and not in the 
least to hers, and proceeded to settle upon her, as a marriage por- 
tion, I don't know how much Dust, but something immense. At 
this stage of the affair the poor girl respectfully intimated that she 
was secretly engaged to that popular character whom the novelists 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 13 

and versifiers call Another, and that such a marriage would make 
Dust of her heart and Dust of her life — in short, would set her 
up, on a very extensive scale, in her father's business. Immedi- 
ately, the venerable parent — on a cold winter's night, it is said — 
anathematised and turned her out." 

Here, the Analytical Chemist (who has evidently formed a very 
low opinion of Mortimer's story) concedes a little claret to the 
Buffers; who, again mysteriously moved all four at once, screw 
it slowly into themselves with a peculiar twist of enjoyment, 
as they cry in chorus, " Pray go on." 

" The pecuniary resources of Another were, as they usually are, 
of a very limited nature. I believe I am not using too strong an 
expression when I say that Another was hard up. However, he 
married the young lady, and they lived in a humble dwelling, 
probably possessing a porch ornamented with honeysuckle and 
woodbine twining, until she died. I must refer you to the Registrar 
of the District in which the humble dwelling was situated, for the 
certified cause of death ; but early sorrow and anxiety may have 
had to do with it, though they may not appear in the ruled pages 
and printed forms. Indisputably this was the case with Another, 
for he was so cut up by the loss of his young wife that if he out- 
lived her a year it was as much as he did." 

There is that in the indolent Mortimer, which seems to hint 
that if good society might on any account allow itself to be impres- 
sible, he, one of good society, might have the weakness to be 
impressed by what he here relates. It is hidden with great pains, 
but it is in him. The gloomy Eugene, too, is not without some kin- 
dred touch ; for, when that appalling Lady Tippins declares that if 
Another had survived, he should have gone down at the head of her 
list of lovers — and also when the mature young lady shrugs her 
epaulettes, and laughs at some private and confidential comment from 
the mature young gentleman — - his gloom deepens to that degree 
that he trifles quite ferociously with his dessert-knife. 

Mortimer proceeds. 

" We must now return, as the novelists say, and as we all wish 
they wouldn't, to the man from Somewhere. Being a boy of four- 
teen, cheaply educating at Brussels when his sister's expulsion 
befell, it was some little time before he heard of it — probably 
from herself, for the mother was dead ; but that I don't know. 
Instantly, he absconded, and came over here. He must have been 
a boy of spirit and resource, to get here on a stopped allowance of 
five sous a week ; but he did it somehow, and he burst in on his 
father, and pleaded his sister's cause. Venerable parent promptly 
resorts to anathematisation, and turns him out. Shocked and 



14 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

terrified boy takes flight, seeks his fortune, gets aboard ship, ulti- 
mately turns up on dry land among the Cape wine : small pro- 
prietor, farmer, grower — whatever you like to call it." 

At this juncture, shuffling is heard in the hall, and tapping is 
heard at the dining-room door. Analytical Chemist goes to the 
door, confers angrily with unseen tapper, appears to become molli- 
fied by descrying reason in the tapping, and goes out. 

" So he was discovered, only the other day, after having been 
expatriated about fourteen years." 

A Buffer, suddenly astounding the other three, by detaching 
himself, and asserting individuality, inquires : " How discovered, 
and why?" 

"■■ Ah ! To be sure. Thank you for reminding me. Venerable 
parent dies." 

Same Buff'er, emboldened by success, says : "When?" 

"The other day. Ten or twelve months ago." 

Same Buffer inquires with smartness, "What of?" But herein 
perishes a melancholy example ; being regarded by the three other 
Buffers with a stony stare, and attracting no further attention from 
any mortal. 

"Venerable parent," Mortimer repeats with a passing remem- 
brance that there is a Veneering at table, and for the first time 
addressing him — " dies." 

The gratified Veneering repeats, gravely, "dies;" and folds his 
arms, and composes his brow to hear it out in a judicial manner, 
when he finds himself again deserted in the bleak world. 

"His will is found," says Mortimer, catching Mrs. Podsnap's 
rocking-horse's eye. " It is dated very soon after the son's flight. 
It leaves the lowest of the range of dust-mountains, with some sort 
of a dwelling-house at its foot, to an old servant who is sole exec- 
utor, and all the rest of the property — which is very considerable 
— to the son. He directs liimself to be buried with certain eccen- 
tric ceremonies and precautions against his coming to life, with 
wliich I need not bore yon, and that's all — except — " and this 
ends the story. 

The Analytical Chemist returning, everybody looks at him. 
Not because anybody wants to see him, but because of that subtle 
influence in nature which impels humanity to embrace the slight- 
est opportunity of looking at anything, rather than the person who 
addresses it. 

" — Except that the son's inheritance is made conditional on 
his marrying a girl, who at the date of the will, was a child of four 
or five years old, and who is now a marriageable young woman. 
Advertisement and inquiry discovered the son in the man from 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 15 

Somewhere, and at the present moment, he is on his way home 
from -there — no doubt, in a state of great astonishment — to suc- 
ceed to a very large fortune, and to take a wife," 

Mrs. Podsnap inquires whether the young person is a young per- 
son of personal charms 'i Mortimer is unable to report. 

Mr. Podsnap inquires what would become of the very large fort- 
une, in the event of the marriage condition not being fulfilled? 
Mortimer replies, that by special testamentary clause it would then 
go to the old servant above mentioned, passing over and excluding 
the son ; also, that if the son had not been living, the same old 
servant would have been sole residuary legatee. 

Mrs. Veneering has just succeeded in waking Lady Tippins from 
a snore, by dexterously shunting a train of plates and dishes at 
her knuckles across the table; when everybody but Mortimer 
himself becomes aware that the Analytical Chemist is, in a ghostly 
manner, offering him a folded paper. Curiosity detains Mrs. Ve- 
neering a few moments. 

Mortimer, in spite of all the arts of the chemist, placidly re- 
freshes himself with a glass of Madeira, and remains unconscious 
of the document which engrosses the general attention, until Lady 
Tippins (who has a habit of waking totally insensible), having 
remembered where she is, and recovered a perception of surround- 
ing objects, says: "Falser man than Don Juan; why don't j^ou 
take the note from the Commendatore ? " Upon which, the chemist 
advances it under the nose of Mortimer, who looks round at him, 
and says : 

"What's this?" 

Analytical Chemist bends and whispers. 

" Who ? " says Mortimer, 

Analytical Chemist again bends and whispers. 

Mortimer stares at him, and unfolds the paper. Reads it, reads 
it twice, turns it over to look at the blank outside, reads it a third 
time. 

" This arrives in an extraordinarily opportune manner," says Mor- 
timer then, looking with an altered face round the table : "this is 
the conclusion of the story of the identical man." 

" Already married ? " one guesses. 

" Declines to marry ? " another guesses. 

" Codicil among the dust ? " another guesses. 

"Why, no," says Mortimer; "remarkable thing, you are all 
wrong. The story is completer and rather more exciting than I 
supposed, Man's drowned ! " 



16 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

CHAPTER III. 

ANOTHER MAN. 

As the disappearing skirts of the ladies ascended the Veneering 
staircase, Mortimer following them forth from the dining-room, 
turned into a library of bran-new books, in bran-new bindings liber- 
ally gilded, and requested to see the messenger who had brought 
the papar. He was a boy of about fifteen. Mortimer looked at 
the boy, and the boy looked at the bran-new pilgrims on the wall, 
going to Canterbury in more gold frame than procession, and more 
carving than country. 

" Whose writing is this ? " ^ 

" Mine, sir. " 

" Who told you to write it 1 " 

"My father, Jesse Hexam." 

" Is it he who found the body ? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" What is your father ? " 

The boy hesitated, looked reproachfully at the pilgrims as if they 
had involved him in a little difficulty, then said, folding a plait in 
the right leg of his trousers, " He gets his living along-shore." 

"Is it far?" 

" Is wliich far 1 " asked the boy, upon his guard, and again upon 
the road to Canterbury. 

" To your father's ? " 

" It's a goodish stretch, sir. I come up in a cab, and the cab's 
waiting to be paid. We could go back in it before you paid it, if 
you liked. I went first to your office, according to the direction of 
the papers found in the pockets, and there I see nobody but a chap 
about my age who sent me on here." 

There was a curious mixture in the boy, of uncompleted savagery, 
and uncompleted civilisation. His voice was hoarse and coarse, 
and his face was coarse, and his stunted figure was coarse ; but he 
was cleaner than other boys of his type ; and his writing, though 
large and round, was good ; and he glanced at the back of the books, 
with an awakened curiosity that went below the binding. No one 
who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like 
one who cannot. 

" Were any means taken, do you know, boy, to ascertain if it was- 
possible to restore life ? " Mortimer inquired, as he sought for his 
hat. 

" You wouldn't ask, sir, if you knew his state. Pharaoh's multi- 
tude, tliat were drowned in the Red Sea, ain't more beyond restoring 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 17 

to life. If Lazarus was only half as far gone, that was the greatest 
of all the miracles." 

"Halloa!" cried Mortimer, turning round with his hat upon 
his head, " you seem to be at home in the Red Sea, my young 
friend?" 

"Read of it with teacher at the school," said the boy. 

" And Lazams ? " 

"Yes, and him too. But don't you tell my father ! We should 
have no peace in our place, if that got touched upon. It's my 
sister's contriving." 

"You seem to have a good sister." 

" She ain't half bad," said the boy ; " but if she knows her letters 
it's the most she does — and them I learned her." 

The gloomy Eugene, with his hands in his pockets, had strolled 
in and assisted at the latter part of the dialogue; when the boy 
spoke these words slightingly of his sister, he took him roughly 
enough by the chin and turned up his face to look at it. 

"Well, I am sure, sir ! " said the boy, resisting; "I hope you'll 
know me again." 

Eugene vouchsafed no answer ; but made the proposal to Morti- 
mer, "I'll go with you, if you like?" So, they all three went 
away together in the vehicle that had brought the boy ; the two 
friends (once boys together at a public school) inside, smoking 
cigars ; the messenger on the box beside the driver. 

" Let me see," said Mortimer as they went along ; "I have been, 
Eugene, upon the honourable roll of solicitors of the High Court of 
Chancery, and attorneys at Common Law, five years ; and — except 
gratuitously taking instructions, on an average once a fortnight, for 
the will of Lady Tippins who has nothing to leave — I have had no 
scrap of business but this romantic business." 

"And I," said Eugene, "have been 'called' seven years, and 
have had no business at all, and never shall have any. And if I 
had, I shouldn't know how to do it." 

"I am far from being clear as to the last particular," returned 
Mortimer, with great composure, " that I have much advantage 
over you." 

"I hate," said Eugene, putting his legs up on the opposite seat, 
"I hate my profession." 

" Shall I incommode you if I put mine up too ? " returned 
Mortimer. " Thank you. I hate mine." 

"It was forced upon me," said the gloomy Eugene, "because it 
was understood that we wanted a barrister in the family. We 
have got a precious one." 

"It was forced upon me," said Mortimer, "because it was under- 



18 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

stood that we wanted a solicitor in the family. And we have got 
a precious one." 

" There are four of us, with our names painted on a door-post 
in right of one black hole called a set of chambers," said Eugene; 
''and each of us has the fourth of a clerk — Cassim Baba, in the 
robber's cave — and Cassim is the only respectable member of the 
party." 

"I am one by myself, one," said Mortimer, " high up an awful 
staircase commanding a burial-ground, and I have a whole clerk to 
myself, and he has nothing to do but look at the burial-ground, 
and what he will turn out when arrived at maturity, I cannot con- 
ceive. Whether, in that shabby rook's nest, he is always plotting 
wisdom, or plotting murder ; whether he will grow up, after so 
much solitary brooding, to enlighten his fellow-creatures, or to 
poison them; is the only speck of interest that presents itself 
to my professional view. Will you give me a light? Thank 
you." 

"Then idiots talk," said Eugene, leaning back, folding his arms, 
smoking with his eyes shut, and speaking slightly through his nose, 
" of Energy. If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter 
from A to Z that I abominate, it is energy. It is such a conven- 
tional superstition, such parrot gabble ! What the deuce ! Am 
I to rush out into the street, collar the first man of a wealthy 
appearance that I meet, shake him, and say, ' Go to law upon the 
spot, you dog, and retain me, or I'll be the death of you'? Yet 
that would be energy." 

" Precisely my view of the case, Eugene. But show me a good 
opportunity, show me something really worth being energetic 
about, and /'ll show you energy." 

"And so will I," said Eugene. 

And it is likely enough that ten thousand other young men, 
within the limits of the London Post-office town-delivery, made 
the same hopeful remark in the course of the same evening. 

The wheels rolled on, and rolled down by the Monument, and by 
the Tower, and by the Docks ; down by Ratcliffe, and by Rother- 
hithe; down by where accumulated scum of humanity seemed to 
be washed from higher grounds, like so 'much moral sewage, and 
to be pausing until its own weight forced it over the bank and 
sunk it in the river. In and out among vessels that seemed 
to have got ashore, and houses that seemed to have got afloat — 
among bowsprits staring into windows, and windows staring into 
ships — the wheels rolled on, until they stopped at a dark corner, 
river-washed and otherwise not washed at all, where the boy 
alighted and opened the door. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 19 

" You must walk the rest, sir ; it's not many yards." He 
spoke in the singular number, to the express exclusion of Eu- 
gene. 

" This is a confoundedly out-of-the-way place," said Mqrtimer, 
slipping over the stones and refuse on the shore, as the boy turned 
the corner sharp. 

" Here's my father's, sir ; where the light is." 

The low building had the look of having once been a mill. 
There was a rotten wart of wood upon its forehead tliat seemed to 
indicate where the sails had been, but the Avhole was very indistinctly 
seen in the obscurity of the night. The boy lifted the latch of the 
door, and they passed at once into a low circular room, where a 
man stood before a red fire, looking down into it, and a girl sat 
engaged in needlework. The fire was in a rusty brasier, not fitted 
to the hearth ; and a common lamp, shaped like a hyacinth-root, 
smoked and flared in the neck of a stone bottle on the table. 
There was a wooden bunk or berth in a corner, and in another 
corner a wooden stair leading above — so clumsy and steep that it 
was little better than a ladder. Two or three old sculls and oars 
stood against the wall, and against another part of the wall was a 
small dresser, making a spare show of the commonest articles of 
crockery and cooking-vessels. The roof of the room was not plas- 
tered, but was formed of the flooring of the room above. This, 
being very old, knotted, seamed, and beamed, gave a lowering 
aspect to the chamber ; and roof, and walls, and floor, alike abound- 
ing in old smears of flour, red-lead (or some such stain which it had 
probably acquired in warehousing), and damp, alike had a look of 
decomposition. 

" The gentleman, father." 

The figure at the red fire turned, raised its ruffled head, and 
looked like a bird of prey. 

" You're Mortimer Lightwood, Esquire ; are you, sir ? " 

"Mortimer Lightwood is my name. What you found," said 
Mortimer, glancing rather shrinkingly towards the bunk; "is 
it here ? " 

" 'Tain't not to say here, but it's close by. I do everything 
reg'lar. I've giv' notice of the circumstarnce to the police, and the 
police have took possession of it. No time ain't been lost, on any 
hand. The police have put it into print already, and here's what 
the print says of it." 

Taking up the bottle with the lamp in it, he held it near a 
paper on the wall, with the police heading. Body Found. The 
two friends read the handbill as it stuck against the wall, and 
Gaffer read them as he held the light, 



20 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Only papers on the unfortunate man, I see," said Light- 
wood, glancing from the description of what was found, to the 
finder. 

" Only papers." 

Here the girl arose with her work in her hand, and went out at 
the door. 

" No money," pursued Mortimer ; " but threepence in one of the 
skirt-pockets." 

"Three. Penny. Pieces," said Gaffer Hexam, in as many 
sentences. 

" The trousers pockets empty, and turned inside out." 

Gaffer Hexam nodded. "But that's common. Whether it's 
the wash of the tide or no, I can't say. Kow, here," moving the 
light to another similar placard, " his pockets was found empty, 
and turned inside out. And here," moving the light to another, 
^'■her pocket was found empty, and turned inside out. And so 
was this one's. And so was that one's. I can't read, nor I don't 
want to it, for I know 'em by their places on the wall. This one 
was a sailor, with two anchors and a flag and G. F. T. on his arm. 
Look and see if he warn't." 

"Quite right." 

" This one was the young woman in grey boots, and her linen 
marked with a cross. Look and see if she warn't." 

" Quite right." 

" This is him as had a nasty cut over the eye. This is them 
two young sisters what tied themselves together with a hand- 
kecher. This is the drunken old chap, in a pair of list slippers 
and a nightcap, wot had offered — it afterwards come out — to 
make a hole in the water for a quartern of rum stood aforehand, 
and kept to his word for the first and last time in his life. They 
pretty well papers the room, you see ; but I know 'em all. I'm 
scholar enough ! " 

He waved the light over the whole, as if to typify the light of 
his scholarly intelligence, and then put it down on the table and 
stood behind it looking intently at his visitors. He had the spe- 
cial peculiarity of some birds of prey, that when he knitted his 
brow, his ruffled crest stood highest. 

"You did not find all these yourself; did you?" asked Eugene. 

To which the bird of prey slowly rejoined, " And what might 
your name be, now 1 " 

"This is my friend," Mortimer Lightwood interposed; "Mr. 
Eugene Wrayburn." 

" Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, is it ? And what might Mr. Eugene 
Wrayburn have asked of me 1 " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 21 

"I asked you, simply, if you found all these yourself?" 

" I answer you, simply, most on 'em." 

"Do you suppose there has been much violence and robbery, 
beforehand, among these cases ? " 

" I don't suppose at all about it," returned Gaffer. " I ain't one 
of the supposing sort. If you'd got your living to haul out of the 
river every day of your life, you mightn't be much given to suppos- 
ing. Am I to show the way ? " 

As he opened the door, in pursuance of a nod from Lightwood, 
an extremely pale and disturbed face appeared in the doorway — 
the face of a man much agitated. 

" A body missing 1 " asked Gaffer Hexam, stopping short ; " or a 
body found? Which?" 

"I am lost ! " replied the man, in a hurried and an eager man- 
ner. 

"Lost?" 

"I — I — am a stranger, and don't know the way. I — I — 
want to find the place where I can see what is described here. It 
is possible I may know it." He was panting, and could hardly 
speak ; but, he showed a copy of the newly-printed bill that was 
still wet upon the wall. Perhaps its newness, or perhaps the 
accuracy of his observation of its general look, guided Gaffer to a 
ready conclusion. 

"This gentleman, Mr. Lightwood, is on that business." 

" Mr. Lightwood ? " 

During a pause, Mortimer and the stranger confronted each 
other. Neither knew the other. 

" I think, sir," said Mortimer, breaking the awkward silence with 
his airy self-possession, " that you did me the honour to mention my 
name?" 

" I repeated it after this man." 

"You said you were a stranger in London?" 

"An utter stranger." 

" Are you seeking a Mr. Harmon ? " 

"No." 

" Then I believe I can assure you that you are on a fruitless 
errand, and will not find what you fear to find. Will you come 
with us ? " 

A little winding through some muddy alleys that might have 
been deposited by the last ill-savoured tide, brought them to the 
wicket-gate and bright lamp of a Police Station ; where they found 
the Night-Inspector, with a pen and ink, and ruler, posting up his 
books in a wliitewashed ofiice, as studiously as if he were in a mon- 
astery on the top of a mountain, and no howling fury of a drunken 



22 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

woman were banging herself against a cell-door in the back-yard at 
his elbow. With the same air of a recluse much given to study, he 
desisted from his books to bestow a distrustful nod of recognition 
upon Gaffer, plainly importing, " Ah ! we know all about you^ and 
you'll overdo it some day ; " and to inform Mr. Mortimer Lightwood 
and friends, that he would attend them immediately. Then, he fin- 
ished ruling the work he had in hand (it might have been illumi- 
nating a missal, he was so calm), in a very neat and methodical 
manner, showing not the slightest consciousness of the woman who 
was banging herself with increased violence, and shrieking most 
terrifically for some other woman's liver. 

"A bull's-eye," said the Night-Inspector, taking up his keys. 
Which a deferential satellite produced. "Now, gentlemen." 

With one of his keys, he opened a cool grot at the end of the 
yard, and they all went in. They quickly came out again, no one 
speaking but Eugene; who remarked to Mortimer, in a whisper, 
"Not much worse than Lady Tippius." 

So back to the whitewashed library of the monastery — with 
that liver still in shrieking requisition, as it had been loudly, while 
they looked at the silent sight they came to see — and there through 
the merits of the case as summed up by the Abbot. No clue to 
how body came into river. Very often was no clue. Too late to 
know for certain, wliether injuries received before or after death ; 
one excellent surgical opinion said, before ; other excellent surgical 
opinion said, after. Steward of ship in which gentleman came 
home passenger, had been round to veiw, and could swear to iden- 
tity. Likewise could swear to clothes. And then, you see, you 
had the papers, too. How was it he had totally disappeared on 
leaving ship, till found in river % Well ! Probably had been upon 
some little game. Probably thought it a harmless game, wasn't up 
to things, and it turned out a fatal game. Inquest to-morrow, and 
no doubt open verdict. 

"It appears to have knocked your friend over — knocked him 
completely off his legs," Mr. Inspector remarked, when he had fin- 
ished his summing up. "It has given him a bad turn to be sure! " 
This was said in a very low voice, and with a searching look (not 
the first he had cast) at the stranger. 

Mr. Lightwood explained that it was no friend of his. 

" Indeed % " said Mr. Inspector, with an attentive ear ; " where 
did you pick him up % " 

Mr. Lightwood explained further. 

Mr. Inspector had delivered his summing up, and had added these 
words, with his elbows leaning on his desk, and the fingers and 
thumb of his right hand, fittinsr themselves to the finsrers and thumb 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 23 

of his left. Mr. Inspector moved nothing but his eyes, as he now 
added, raising his voice : i , • 

" Turned you faint, sir ! Seems you're not accustomed to this 

kind of Avork ? " • • i. 

The stranger, who was leaning against the chimney-piece with 
drooping head, looked round and answered, 

" No. It's a horrible sight ! " 

" You expected to identify, I am told, sir ? " 

"Yes." 

" Have you identified ? " 

" No. It's a horrible sight. ! a horrible, horrible sight ! " 

"Who did you think it might have been? " asked Mr. Inspector. 
"Give us a description, sir. Perhaps we can help you." 

" No, no," said the stranger ; " it would be quite useless. Good 

night."' ' 11^ 

Mr. Inspector had not moved, and had given no order; but, the sat- 
ellite slipped his back against the wicket, and laid his left arm along 
the top of it, and with his right hand turned the bull's-eye he had taken 
from his chief — in quite a casual manner — towards the stranger. 

" You missed a friend, you know; or you missed a foe, you know; 
or you wouldn't have come here, you know. Well, then ; ain't it 
reasonable to ask, who was it 1 " Thus, Mr. Inspector. 

" You must excuse my telling you. No class of man can under- 
stand better than you, that families may not choose to pubhsh their 
disagreements and misfortunes, except on the last necessity. I do 
not dispute that you discharge your duty in asking me the question j 
you will not dispute my right to withhold the answer. Good night." 

Again he turned towards the wicket, wh^re the satellite, with 
his eye upon his chief, remained a dumb statue. 

"At least," said Mr. Inspector, "you will not object to leave 
me your card, sir 1 " 

" I should not object, if I had one ; but I have not." He red- 
dened and was much confused as he gave the answer. 

" At least," said Mr. Inspector, with no change of voice or man- 
ner, "you will not object to write down your name and address ?" 

"Not at all." 

Mr. Inspector dipped a pen in his inkstand, and deftly laid it on 
a piece of paper close beside him ; then resumed his former attitude. 
The stranger stepped up to the desk, and wrote in a rather tremu- 
lous hand — Mr. Inspector taking sidelong note of every hair of 
his head when it was bent down for the purpose— "Mr. Julius 
Handford, Exchequer Coffee House, Palace Yard, Westminster." 

" Staying there, I presume, sir 1 " 

" Staying there." 



24 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Consequently, from the country?" 

" Eh ? Yes — from the country. " 

" Good night, sir." 

The satelHte removed his arm and opened the wicket, and Mr. 
Julius Handford went out. 

" Eeserve ! " said Mr. Inspector. " Take care of this piece of 
paper, keep him in view without giving offence, ascertain that he is 
staying there, and find out anything you can about him." 

The satellite was gone ; and Mr. Inspector becoming once again 
the quiet Abbot of that Monastery, dipped his pen in his ink and 
resumed his books. The two friends who had watched him, more 
amused by the professional manner than suspicious of Mr. Julius 
Handford, inquired before taking their departure too whether he 
believed there was anything that really looked bad here 1 

The Abbot replied with reticence, " couldn't say. If a murder, 
anybody might have done it. Burglary or pocket-picking wanted 
'prenticeship. Not so murder. We were all of us up to that. 
Had seen scores of people come to identify, and never saw one per- 
son struck in that particular way. Might, however, have been 
Stomach and not Mind. If so, rum stomach. But to be sure 
there were rum everythings. Pity there was not a word of truth 
in that superstition about bodies bleeding when touched by the hand 
of the right person ; you never got a sign out of bodies. You got 
row enough out of such as her — she was good for all night now " 
(referring here to the banging demands of the liver), " but you got 
nothing out of bodies if it was ever so." 

There being nothing more to be done until the inquest was held 
next day, the friends went away together, and Gaffer Hexam and 
his son went their separate way. But, arriving at the last corner, 
Gaffer bade his boy go home while he turned into a red-curtained 
tavern, that stood dropsically bulging over the causeway, "for a 
half-a-pint." 

The boy lifted the latch he had lifted before, and found his sister 
again seated before the fire at her work. Who raised her head upon 
his coming in and asking : 

" Where did you go, Liz 1 " 

"I went out in the dark." 

" There was no necessity for that. It was all right enough." 

" One of the gentlemen, the one who didn't speak while I was 
there, looked hard at me. And I was afraid he might know what 
my face meant. But there ! Don't mind me, Charley ! I was all 
in a tremble of another sort when you owned to father you could 
write a little." 

" Ah ! But I made believe I wrote so badly, as that it was odds 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 25 

if any one could read it. And when I wrote slowest and smeared 
out with my finger most, father was best pleased, as he stood look- 
ing over me." 

The girl put aside her work, and drawing her seat close to his 
seat by the fire, laid her arm gently on his shoulder. 

" You'll make the most of your time, Charley ; won't you 1 " 

" Won't 1 1 Come ! I like that. Don't 1 1 " 

" Yes, Charley, yes. You work hard at your learning, I know. 
And I work a little, Charley, and plan and contrive a little (wake 
out of my sleep contriving sometimes), how to get together a shil- 
ling now, and a shilling then, that shall make father believe you 
are beginning to earn a stray living along-shore." 

"You are father's favourite, and can make him beheve any- 
thing." 

" I wish I could, Charley ! For if I could make him believe 
that learning was a good thing, and that we might lead better lives, 
I should be a'most content to die." 

"Don't talk stuff about dying, Liz." 

She placed her hands in one another on his shoulder, and laying 
her rich brown cheek against them as she looked down at the fire, 
went on thoughtfully : 

"Of an evening, Charley, when you are at the school, and 
father's " 

"At the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters," the boy struck in, with 
a backward nod of his head towards the public-house. 

" Yes. Then as I sit a looking at the fire, I seem to see in the 
burning coal — like where that glow is now " 

" That's gas, that is," said the boy, " coming out of a bit of a 
forest that's been under the mud that was under the water in the 
days of Noah's Ark. Look here ! When I take the poker — so 
— and give it a dig " 

" Don't disturb it, Charley, or it'll be all in a blaze. It's that 
dull glow near it, coming and going, that I mean. When I look 
at it of an evening, it comes like pictures to me, Charley." 

" Show us a picture," said the boy. " Tell us where to look." 

"Ah 1 It wants my eyes, Charley." 

" Cut away then, and tell us what your eyes make of it." 

"Why, there are you and me, Charley, when you were quite a 
baby that never knew a mother " 

" Don't go saying I never knew a mother," interposed the boy, 
"for I knew a little sister that was sister and mother both." 

The girl laughed delightedly, and her eyes filled with pleasant 
tears, as he put both his arms round her waist and so held her. 

" There are you and me, Charley, when father was away at work 



26 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

and locked us out, for fear we should set ourselves afire or fall out of 
window, sitting on the door-sill, sitting on other door-steps, sitting 
on the bank of the river, wandering about to get through the time. 
You are rather heavy to carry, Charley, and I'm often obliged to 
rest. Sometimes we are sleepy and fall asleep together in a corner, 
sometimes we are very hungry, sometimes we are a little frightened, 
but what is oftenest hard upon us is the cold. You remember, 
Charley?" 

"I remember," said the boy, pressing her to him twice or thrice, 
" that I snuggled under a little shawl, and it was warm there." 

"Sometimes it rains, and we creep under a boat or the like of 
that ; sometimes it's dark, and we get among the gaslights, sitting 
watching the people as they go along the streets. At last, up comes 
father and takes us home. And home seems such a shelter after 
out of doors ! And father pulls my shoes off, and dries my feet at 
the fire, and has me to sit by him while he smokes his pipe long 
after you are abed, and I notice that father's is a large hand but 
never a heavy one when it touches me, and that father's is a rough 
voice but never an angry one when it speaks to me. So, I grow 
up, and little by little father trusts me, and makes me his com- 
panion, and, let him be put out as he may, never once strikes me." 

The listening boy gave a grunt here, as much as to say, " But he 
strikes me though ! " 

" Those are some of the pictures of what is past, Charley." 

"Cut away again," said the boy, "and give us a fortune-teUing 
one ; a future one." 

"Well! There am I, continuing with father, and holding to 
father, because father loves me, and I love father. I can't so 
much as read a book, because, if I had learned, father would have 
thought I was deserting him, and I should have lost my influence. 
I have not the influence I want to have, I cannot stop some dread- 
ful things I try to stop, but I go on in the hope and trust that the 
time will come. In the meanwhile I know that I am in some 
things a stay to father, and that if I was not faithful to him he 
would — in revenge-like, or in disappointment, or both — go wild 
and bad." 

"Give us a touch of the fortune-telling pictures about me." 

"I was passing on to them, Charley," said the girl, who had 
not changed her attitude since she began, and who now mournfully 
shook her head; "the others were all leading up. There are 
you " 

"Where am I, Liz?" 

" Still in the hollow down by the flare." 

" There seems to be the deuce-and-all in the tlie hollow down by 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 27 

the flare," said the boy, glancing from her eyes to thebrasier, which 
had a grisly skeleton look on its long thin legs, 

" There are you, Charley, working your way, in secret from 
father, at the school ; and you get jDrizes ; and you go on better 
and better ; and you come to be a — what was it you called it when 
you told me about that ? " 

" Ha, ha ! Fortune-telling not know the name ! " cried the boy, 
seeming to be rather relieved by this default on the part of the hol- 
low down by the flare. " Pupil-teacher." 

" You come to be a pupil-teacher, and you still go on better and 
better, and you rise to be a master full of learning and respect. 
But the secret has come to father's knowledge long before, and it 
has divided you from father, and from me." 

" No it hasn't ! " 

" Yes it has, Charley. I see, as plain as plain can be, that your 
way is not ours, and that even if father could be got to forgive your 
taking it (which he never could be), that way of yours would be 
darkened by our way. But I see too, Charley " 

" Still as plain as plain can be, Liz ? " asked the boy, play- 
fully. 

" Ah ! Still. That it is a great work to have cut your way from 
father's life, and to have made a new and good beginning. So there 
am I, Charley, left alone with father, keeping him as straight as I 
can, watching for more influence than I have, and hoping that 
through some fortunate chance, or when he is ill, or when — I don't 
know what — I may turn him to wish to do better things." 

"You said you couldn't read a book, Lizzie. Your library of 
books is the hollow down by the flare, I think." 

" I should be very glad to be able to read real books. I feel my 
want of learning very much, Charley. But I should feel it much 
more, if I didn't know it to be a tie between me and father. — Hark ! 
Father's tread ! " 

It being now past midnight, the bird of prey went straight to 
roost. At midday following he reappeared at the Six Jolly Fellow- 
ship-Porters, in the character, not new to him, of a witness before 
a Coroner's Jury. 

Mr. Mortimer Lightwood, besides sustaining the character of one 
of the witnesses, doubled the part with that of the eminent solicitor 
who watched the proceedings on behalf of the representatives of 
the deceased, as was duly recorded in the newspapers. Mr. Inspec- 
tor watched the proceedings too, and kept his watching closely to 
himself. Mr. Julius Handford having given his right address, and 
being reported in solvent circumstances as to his bill, though noth- 
ing more was known of him at his hotel except that his way of life 



28 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

was very retired, had no summons to appear, and was merely pres- 
ent in the shades of Mr. Inspector's mind. 

The case was made interesting to the public, by Mr. Mortimer 
Lightwood's evidence touching the circumstances under which the 
deceased, Mr. John Harmon, had returned to England ; exclusive 
private proprietorship in which circumstances was set up at dinner- 
tables for several days, by Veneering, Twemlow, Podsnap, and all 
the Buffers : who all related them irreconcilably with one another, 
and contradicted themselves. It was also made interesting by the 
testimony of Job Potterson, the ship's steward, and one Mr. Jacob 
Kibble, a fellow-passenger, that the deceased Mr. John Harmon 
did bring over, in a hand-valise with which he did disembark, the 
sum realised^^'by the forced sale of his little landed property, and 
that the sum exceeded, in ready money, seven hundred pounds. It 
was further made interesting, by the remarkable experiences of Jesse 
Hexam in having rescued from the Thames so many dead bodies, 
and for whose behoof a rapturous admirer subscribing himself " A 
Friend to Burial " (perhaps an undertaker), sent eighteen postage 
stamps, and five " Now Sir "s to the editor of the Times. 

Upon the evidence adduced before them, the Jury found. That the 
body of Mr. John Harmon had been discovered floating in the 
Thames, in an advanced state of decay, and much injured; and 
that the said Mr. John Harmon had come by his death under highly 
suspicious circumstances, though by whose act or in what precise 
manner there was no evidence before this Juiy to show. And they 
appended to their verdict, a recommendation to the Home Office 
(which Mr. Inspector appeared to think highly sensible), to offer a 
reward for the solution of the mystery. Within eight-and-forty 
hours, a reward of One Hundred Pounds was proclaimed, together 
with a free pardon to any person or persons not the actual perpe- 
trator or perpetrators, and so forth in due form. 

This Proclamation rendered Mr. Inspector additionally studious, 
and caused him to stand meditating on river-stairs and causeways, 
and to go lurking about in boats, putting this and that together. But, 
according to the success with which you put this and that together, 
you get a woman and a fish apart, or a Mermaid in combination. 
And Mr. Inspector could turn out nothing better than a Mermaid, 
which no Judge and Jury would believe in. 

Thus, like the tides on which it had been borne to the knowl- 
edge of men, the Harmon Murder — as it came to be popularly 
called — went up and down, and ebbed and flowed, now in the town, 
now in the country, now among palaces, now among hovels, now 
among lords and ladies and gentlefolks, now among labourers and 
hammerers and ballast-heavers, until at last, after a long interval 
of slack water, it got out to sea and drifted away. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 29 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE R. WILFER FAMILY. 

Reginald Wilfer is a name with rather a grand sound, sug- 
gesting on first acquaintance brasses in country churches, scrolls in 
stained-glass windows, and generally the De Wilfers who came over 
with the Conqueror. For, it is a remarkable fact in genealogy 
that no De Any ones ever came over with Anybody else. 

But, the Reginald Wilfer family were of such commonplace ex- 
traction and pursuits that their forefathers had for generations 
modestly subsisted on the Docks, the Excise Office, and the Cus- 
tom House, and the existing R. Wilfer was a poor clerk. So poor 
a clerk, through having a limited salary and an unlimited family, 
that he had never yet attained the modest object of his ambition : 
which was, to wear a complete new suit of clothes, hat and boots 
included, at one time. His black hat was brown before he could 
afford a coat, his pantaloons were white at the seams and knees 
before he could buy a pair of boots, his boots had worn out before 
he could treat himself to new pantaloons, and by the time he worked 
round to the hat again, that shining modern article roofed-in an 
ancient ruin of various periods. 

If the conventional Cherub could ever grow up and be clothed, 
he might be photographed as a portrait of Wilfer. His chubby, 
smooth, innocent appearance was a reason for his being always 
treated with condescension when he was not put down. A stranger 
entering his own poor house at about ten o'clock p.m. might have 
been surprised to find him sitting up to supper. So boyish was 
he in his curves and proportions, that his old schoolmaster meeting 
him in Cheapside, might have been unable to withstand the temp- 
tation of caning him on the spot. In short, he was the conventional 
cherub, after the supposititious shoot just mentioned, rather grey, 
with signs of care on his expression, and in decidedly insolvent 
circumstances. 

He was shy, and unwilling to own to the name of Reginald, as 
being too aspiring and self-assertive a name. In his signature he 
used only the initial R., and imparted what it really stood for, to 
none but chosen friends, under the seal of confidence. Out of this, 
the facetious habit had arisen in the neighbourhood surrounding 
Mincing Lane of making Christian names for him of adjectives and 
participles beginning with R. Some of these were more or less ap- 
propriate : as Rusty, Retiring, Ruddy, Round, Ripe, Ridiculous, Ru- 
minative ; others derived their point from their want of application : 
as Raging, Rattling, Roaring, Raffish. But, his popular name was 



30 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Rumty, which in a moment of inspiration had been bestowed upon 
him by a gentleman of convivial habits connected with the drug 
market, as the beginning of a social chorus, his leading part in the 
execution of which had led this gentleman to the Temple of Fame, 
and of which the whole expressive burden ran : 

*' Rumty iddity, row dow dow. 
Sing toodlely, teedlely, bow wow wow." 

Thus he was constantly addressed, even in minor notes on business, 
as "Dear Rumty; " in answer to which, he sedately signed himself, 
"Yours truly, R. Wilfer." 

He was clerk in the drug- house of Chicksey, Veneering, and 
Stobbles. Chicksey and Stobbles, his former masters, had both 
become absorbed in Veneering, once their traveller or commission 
agent : who had signalised his accession to supreme power by 
bringing into the business a quantity of plate-glass window and 
French-polished mahogany partition, and a gleaming and enormous 
door-plate. 

R. Wilfer locked up his desk one evening, and putting his bunch 
of keys in his pocket much as if it were his peg-top, made for home. 
His home was in the Holloway region north of London, and then 
divided from it by fields and trees. Between Battle Bridge and 
that part of the Holloway district in which he dwelt, was a tract 
of suburban Sahara, where tiles and bricks were burnt, bones w^ere 
boiled, carpets were* beat, rubbish was shot, dogs were fought, and 
dust was heaped by contractors. Skirting the border of this des- 
ert, by the way he took, when the light of its kiln-fires made lurid 
smears on the fog, R. Wilfer sighed and shook his head. 

" Ah me ! " said he, " what might have been is not what is ! " 

With which commentary on human life, indicating an experience 
of it not exclusively his own, he made the best of his way to the 
end of his journey. 

Mrs. Wilfer was, of course, a tall woman and an angidar. Her 
lord being cherubic, she was necessarily majestic, according to the 
principle which matrimonially unites contrasts. She was much 
given to tying up her head in a pocket-handkerchief, knotted under 
the chin. This head-gear, in conjunction with a pair of gloves worn 
within doors, she seemed to consider as at once a kind of armour 
against misfortune (invariably assuming it when in low spirits or 
difficulties), and as a species of full dress. It was therefore with 
some sinking of the spirit that her husband beheld her thus heroi- 
cally attired, putting down her candle in the little hall, and coming 
down the doorsteps through the little front court to open the gate 
for him. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 31 

Something had gone wrong with the house-door, for R. Wilfer 
stopped on the steps, staring at it, and cried : 

"Hal— loa?" 

"Yes," said Mrs. Wilfer, "the man came himself with a pair of 
pincers, and took it off, and took it away. He said that as he had 
no expectation of ever being paid for it, and as he had an order for 
another Ladies' School door-plate, it was better (burnished up) 
for the interests of all parties." 

" Perhaps it was, my dear ; what do you think 1 " 

"You are master here, R. W.," returned his wife. "It is 
as you think ; not as I do. Perhaps it might have been better if 
the man had taken the door too." 

" My dear, we couldn't have done without the door." 

" Couldn't we ? " 

" Why, my dear ! Could we ? " 

"It is as you think, R. W. ; not as I do." With those submis- 
sive words, the dutiful wife preceded him down a few stairs to a 
little basement front room, half kitchen, half parlour, where a girl 
of about nineteen, with an exceedingly pretty figure and face, but 
with an impatient and petulant expression both in her face and in 
her shoulders (which in her sex and at her age are very expressive 
of discontent), sat playing draughts with a younger girl, who was 
the youngest of the House of Wilfer. Not to encumber this page 
by telling off the Wilfers in detail and casting them up in the gross, it 
is enough for the present that the rest- were what is called "out in 
the world," in various ways, and that they were Many. So many, 
that when one of his dutiful children called in to see him, R. Wilfer 
generally seemed to say to himself, after a little mental arithmetic, 
" Oh ! here's another of 'em ! " before adding aloud, " How de do, 
John," or Susan, as the case might be. 

"Well, Piggy wiggles," said R. W., " how de do to-night? What 
I was thinking of, my dear," to Mrs. Wilfer already seated in a 
corner with folded gloves, " was, that as we have let our first floor 
so well, and as we have now no place in which you could teach 

pupils, even if pupils " 

" The milkman said he knew of two young ladies of the highest 
respectability who were in search of a suitable establishment, and 
he took a card," interposed Mrs. Wilfer, with severe monotony, as 
if she were reading an Act of Parliament aloud. " Tell your father 
whether it was last Monday, Bella." 

"But we never heard any more of it, ma," said Bella, the elder 
girl. 

"In addition to which, my dear," her husband urged, "if you 
have no place to put two young persons into " 



32 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Pardon me," Mrs. Wilfer again interposed; "they were not 
yoimg persons. Two young ladies of the highest respectability. 
Tell your father, Bella, whether the milkman said so." 

"My dear, it is the same thing." 

" No it is not," said Mrs. Wilfer, with the same impressive monot- 
ony. " Pardon me ! " 

" I mean, my dear, it is the same thing as to space. As to space. 
If you have no space in which to put two youthful fellow-creatures, 
however eminently respectable, which I do not doubt, where are 
those youthful fellow-creatures to be accommodated ? I carry it no 
further than that. And solely looking at it," said her husband, 
making the stipulation at once in a conciliatory, complimentary, and 
argumentative tone — "as I am sure you will agree, my love — from 
a fellow-creature point of view, my dear." 

" I have nothing more to say," returned Mrs. Wilfer, with a meek 
renunciatory action of her gloves. "It is as you think, R. W. ; 
not as I do." 

Here, the huffing of Miss Bella and the loss of three of her men 
at a swoop, aggravated by the coronation of an opponent, led to 
that young lady's jerking the draught-board and pieces off the table : 
which her sister went down on her knees to pick up. 

"Poor Bella ! " said Mrs. Wilfer. 

" And poor Lavinia, perhaps, my dear 1 " suggested R. W. 

"Pardon me," said Mrs. Wilfer, "no !" 

It was one of the worthy woman's specialities that she had an 
amazing power of gratifying her splenetic or worldly-minded hu- 
mours by extolling her own family : which she thus proceeded, in the 
present case, to do. 

" No, R. W. Lavinia has not known the trial that Bella has 
known. The trial that your daughter Bella has undergone, is, per- 
haps, without a parallel, and has been borne, I will say. Nobly. 
When you see your daughter Bella in her black dress, which she 
alone of all the family wears, and when you remember the circum- 
stances which have led to her wearing it, and when you know how 
those circumstances have been sustained, then, R. W., lay your head 
upon your pillow and say, ' Poor Lavinia ! ' " 

Here, Miss Lavinia, from her kneeling situation under the table, 
put in that she didn't want to be "poored by pa," or anybody 
else. 

" I am sure you do not, my dear," returned her mother, " for you 
have a fine brave spirit. And your sister Cecilia has a fine brave 
spirit of another kind, a spirit of pure devotion, a bcau-ti-ful spirit ! 
The self-sacrifice of Cecilia reveals a pure and womanly character, 
very seldom equalled, never surpassed. I have now in my pocket 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 33 

a letter from your sister Cecilia, received this morning — received 
three months after her marriage, poor child ! — - in which she tells 
me that her husband must unexpectedly shelter under their roof 
his reduced aunt. 'But I will be true to him, mamma,' she 
touchingly writes, ' I will not leave him, I must not forget that 
he is my husband. Let his aunt come ! ' If this is not pa- 
thetic, if this is not woman's devotion ! " The good lady 

waved her gloves in a sense of the impossibility of saying more, 
and tied the pocket-handkerchief over her head in a tighter knot 
under her chin. 

Bella, who was now seated on the rug to warm herself, with her 
brown eyes on the fire and a handful of her brown curls in her 
mouth, laughed at this, and then pouted and half cried. 

" I am sure," said she, " though you have no feeling for me, pa, 
I am one of the most unfortunate girls that ever lived. You know 
how poor we are " (it is probable he did, having some reason to 
know it ! ), " and what a glimpse of wealth I had, and how it 
melted away, and how I am here in this ridiculous mourning — 
which I hate ! — a kind of a widow who never was married. And 
yet you don't feel for me, — Yes you do, yes you do." 

This abrupt change was occasioned by her father's face. She 
stopped to pull him down from his chair in an attitude highly 
favourable to strangulation, and to give him a kiss and a pat or 
two on the cheek. 

" But you ought to feel for me, you know, pa." 

"My dear, I do." 

"Yes, and I say you ought to. If they had only left me alone 
and told me nothing about it, it would have mattered much less. 
But that nasty Mr. Lightwood feels it his duty, as he says, to write 
and tell me what is in reserve for me, and then I am obliged to get 
rid of George Sampson." 

Here Lavinia, rising to the surface with the last draughtman 
rescued, interposed, "You never cared for George Sampson, Bella." 

" And did I say I did, miss ? " Then, pouting again, with the 
curls in her mouth : " George Sampson was very fond of me, and 
admired me very much, and put up with everything I did to him." 

"You were rude enough to him," Lavinia again interposed. 

"And did I say I wasn't, miss? I am not setting up to be sen- 
timental about George Sampson. I only say George Sampson was 
better than nothing." 

"You didn't show him that you thought even that," Lavinia 
again interposed. 

"You are a chit and a little idiot," returned Bella, "or you 
wouldn't make such a dolly speech. What did you expect me to 



34 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

do ? Wait till you are a woman, and don't talk about what you 
don't understand. You only show your ignorance ! " Then whim- 
pering again, and at intervals biting the curls, and stopping to look 
how much was bitten off, " It's a shame ! There never was such a 
hard case ! I shouldn't care so much if it wasn't so ridiculous. It 
was ridiculous enough to have a stranger coming over to marry me, 
whether he liked it or not. It was ridiculous enough to know what 
an embarrassing meeting it would be, and how we never could pre- 
tend to have an inclination of our own, either of us. It was ridic- 
ulous enough to know I shouldn't like him — how could I like 
him, left to him in a will, like a dozen of spoons, with everything cut 
and dried beforehand, like orange chips. Talk of orange flowers, 
indeed ! I declare again it's a shame ! Those ridiculous points 
would have been smoothed away by the money, for I love money, 
and want money — want it dreadfully. I hate to be poor, and we 
are degradingly poor, offensively poor, miserably poor, beastly poor. 
But here I am, left with all the ridiculous parts of the situation 
remaining, and added to them all, this ridiculous dress ! And if 
the truth was known, when the Harmon murder was all over the 
town, and people were speculating on its being suicide, I dare say 
those impudent wretches at the clubs and places made jokes about 
the miserable creature's having preferred a watery grave to me. It's 
likely enough they took such liberties ; I shouldn't wonder ! I 
declare it's a very hard case indeed, and I am a most unfortunate 
girl. The idea of being a kind of widow, and never having been 
married ! And the idea of being as poor as ever after all, and going 
into black, besides, for a man I never saw, and should have hated 
— as far as he was concerned — if I had seen ! " 

The young lady's lamentations were choked at this point by a 
knuckle, knocking at the half-open door of the room. The knuckle 
had knocked two or three times already, but had not been heard. 

" Who is it ?" said Mrs. Wilfer, in her Act-of-Parliament manner. 
"Enter!" 

A gentleman coming in, Miss Bella, with a short and sharp ex- 
clamation, scrambled off the hearth-rug and massed the bitten curls 
together in their right place on her neck. 

" The servant girl had her key in the door as I came up, and 
directed me to this room, telling me I was expected. I am afraid 
I should have asked her to announce me." 

" Pardon me," returned Mrs. Wilfer. " Not at all. Two of my 
daughters. R. W., this is the gentleman who has taken your first 
floor. He was so good as to make an appointment for to-night, 
when you would be at home." 

A dark gentleman. Thirty at the utmost. An expressive, one 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 35 

might say haudsome, face. A very bad manner. In the last degree 
constrained, reserved, diffident, troubled. His eyes were on Miss 
Bella for an instant, and then looked at the ground as he addressed 
the master of the house. 

" Seeing that I am quite satisfied, Mr. Wilfer, with the rooms, 
and with their situation, and with their price, I suppose a memo- 
randum between us of two or three lines, and a payment down, will 
bind the bargain? I wish to send in furniture without delay." 

Two or three times during this short address, the chemb addressed 
had made chubby motions towards a chair. The gentleman now 
took it, laying a hesitating hand on a corner of the table, and 
with another hesitating hand lifting the crown of his hat to his 
lips, and drawing it before his mouth. 

" The gentleman, R. W.," said Mrs. Wilfer, " proposes to take 
your apartments by the quarter. A quarter's notice on either 
side." 

"Shall I mention, sir," insinuated the landlord, expecting it to 
be received as a matter of course, " the form of a reference ? " 

"I think," returned the gentleman, after a pause, "that a refer- 
ence is not necessary ; ^either, to say the truth, is it convenient, 
for I am a stranger in London. I require no reference from you, 
and perhaps, therefore, you will require none from me. That will 
be fair on both sides. Indeed, I show the greater confidence of 
the two, for I will pay in advance whatever you please, and I am 
going to trust my furniture here. Whereas, if you were in embarrassed 
circumstances — this is merely supposititious " 

Conscience causing R. Wilfer to colour, Mrs. Wilfer, from a corner 
(she always got into stately corners) came to the rescue with a deep- 
toned " Per-fectly." 

" — Why then I — might lose it." 

"Well ! " observed R. Wilfer, cheerfully, " money and goods are 
certainly the best of references." 

" Do you think they are the best, pa ? " asked Miss Bella, in a 
low voice, and without looking over her shoulder as she warmed 
her foot on the fender. 

" Among the best, my dear." 

" I should have thought, myself, it was so easy to add the usual 
kind of one," said Bella, with a toss of her curls. 

The gentleman listened to her with a face of marked attention, 
though he neither looked up nor changed his attitude. He sat, still 
and silent, until his future landlord accepted his proposals, and 
brought writing materials to complete the business. He sat, still 
and silent, while the landlord wrote. 

When the agreement was ready in duplicate (the landlord 




WITNESSING THE AGREEMENT. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 37 

having worked at it like some cherubic scribe, in what is conven- 
tionally called a doubtful, which means a not at all doubtful. Old 
Master), it was signed by the contracting parties, Bella looking on 
as scornful witness. The contracting parties were R. Wilfer, and 
John Rokesmith, Esquire. 

When it came to Bella's turn to sign her name, Mr. Rokesmith, 
who was standing, as he had sat, with a hesitating hand upon the 
table, looked at her stealthily, but narrowly. He looked at the 
pretty figure bending down over the paper and saying, "Where am 
I to go, pa ? Here, in this corner ? " He looked at the beautiful 
brown hair, shading the coquettish face ; he looked at the free dash 
of the signature, which was a bold one for a woman's ; and then 
they looked at one another. 

"Much obliged to you,^ Miss Wilfer." 

"Obliged?" 

" I have given you so much trouble." 

" Signing my name ? Yes, certainly. But I am your landlord's 
daughter, sir." 

As there was nothing more to do but pay eight sovereigns in 
earnest of the bargain, pocket the agreement, appoint a time for 
the arrival of his furniture and himself, and go, Mr. Rokesmith did 
that as awkardly as it might be done, and was escorted by his land- 
lord to the outer air. When R. Wilfer returned, candlestick in 
hand, to the bosom of his family, he found the bosom agitated. 

" Pa," said Bella, " we have got a Murderer for a tenant." 

"Pa," said Lavinia, "we have got a Robber." 

" To see him unable for his life to look anybody in the face," said 
Bella. " There never was such an exhibition." 

" My dears," said their father, "he is a diffident gentleman, and 
I should say particularly so in the society of girls of your age." 

" Nonsense, our age ! " cried Bella, impatiently. " What's that 
got to do with him ? " 

• " Besides, we are not of the same age : — which age 1 " demanded 
f Lavinia. 

"Never t/ou mind, Lavvy," retorted Bella; "you wait till you 
are of an age to ask such questions. Pa, mark my words ! Between 
Mr. Rokesmith and me, there is a natural antipathy and a deep dis- 
trust ; and something will come of it ! " 

• " My dear, and girls," said the cherub-patriarch, " between Mr. 
[ Rokesmith and me, there is a matter of eight sovereigns, and some- 
l thing for supper shall come of it if you'll agree on the article." 

This was a neat and happy turn to give the subject, treats being 
rare in the Wilfer household, where a monotonous appearance of 
Dutch-clieese at ten o'clock in the evening had been rather fre- 



38 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

quently commented on by the dimpled shoulders of Miss Bella. 
Indeed, the modest Dutchman himself seemed conscious of his want 
of variety, and generally came before the family in a state of apolo- 
getic perspiration. After some discussion on the relative merits of 
veal-cutlet, sweetbread, and lobster, a decision was pronounced in 
favour of veal-cutlet. Mrs. Wilfer then solemnly divested herself 
of her handkerchief and gloves, as a preliminary sacrifice to prepar- 
ing the frying-pan, and R. W. himself went out to purcliase the 
viand. He soon returned, bearing the same in a fresh cabbage-leaf, 
where it coyly embraced a rasher of ham. Melodious sounds were 
not long in rising from the frying-pan on the fire, or in seeming, as 
the firelight danced in the mellow halls of a couple of full bottles 
on the table, to play appropriate dance-music. 

The cloth was laid by Lavvy. Bella, as the acknowledged orna- 
ment of the family, employed both her hands in giving her hair an 
additional wave while sitting in the easiest chair, and occasionally 
threw in a direction touching the supper : as, " Very brown, ma ; " 
or, to her sister, " Put the saltcellar straight, miss, and don't be a 
dowdy little puss." 

Meantime her father, chinking Mr. Rokesmith's gold as he sat 
expectant between his knife and fork, remarked that six of those 
sovereigns came just in time for their landlord, and stood them in a 
little pile on the white tablecloth to look at. 

" I hate our landlord ! " said Bella. 

But observing a fall in her father's face, she went and sat down 
by him at the table, and began touching up his hair with the handle 
of a fork. It was one of the girl's spoilt ways to be always arrang- 
ing the family's hair — perhaps because her own was so pretty, and 
occupied so much of her attention. 

" You deserve to have a house of your own; don't you, poor pa 1 " 

"I don't deserve it better than another, my dear." 

"At any rate I, for one, want it more than another," said Bella, 
holding him by the chin, as she stuck his flaxen hair on end, " and 
I grudge this money going to the Monster that swallows up so 
much, when we all want — Everything. And if you say (as you 
want to say ; I know you want to say so, pa) ' that's neither rea- 
sonable nor honest, Bella,' then I answer, 'Maybe not, pa — very 
likely — but it's one of the consequences of being poor, and of thor- 
oughly hating and detesting to be poor, and that's my case.' Now, * 
you look lovely, pa; why don't you always wear your hair like 
that 1 And here's the cutlet ! If it isn't very brown, ma, I can't ^ 
eat it, and must have a bit put back to be done expressly." 

However, as it was brown, even to Bella's taste, the young lady 
graciously partook of it without reconsignment to the frying-pan, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 39 

and also, in due course, of the contents of the two bottles : where- 
of one held Scotch ale and the other rum. The latter perfume, 
with the fostering aid of boiling water and lemon-peel, diffused 
itself throughout the room, and became so highly concentrated 
around the warm fireside, that the wind passing over the house 
roof must have rushed off charged with a delicious whiff of it, 
after buzzing like a great bee at that particular chimney-pot. 

" Pa," said Bella, sipping the fragrant mixture and warming her 
favourite ankle ; " when old Mr. Harmon made such a fool of me 
(not to mention himself as he is dead), what do you suppose he did 
it for?" 

" Impossible to say, my dear. As I have told you times out of 
number since his will was brought to light, I doubt if I ever 
exchanged a hundred words with the old gentleman. If it Avas 
his whim to surprise us, his whim succeeded. For he certainly 
did it." 

" And I was stamping my foot and screaming, when he first took 
notice of me ; was 1 1 " said Bella, contemplating the ankle before 
mentioned. 

"You were stamping your little foot, my dear, and screaming 
with your little voice, and laying into me with your little bonnet, 
which you had snatched off for the purpose," returned her father, 
as if the remembrance gave a relish to the rum ; " you were doing 
this one Sunday morning when I took you out, because I didn't go 
the exact way you wanted, when the old gentleman, sitting on a 
seat near, said, ' That's a nice girl ; that's a ver?/ nice girl ; promis- 
ing girl ! ' And so you were, my dear." 

" And then he asked my name, did he, pa 1 " 

" Then he asked your name, my dear, and mine ; and on other 
Sunday mornings, when we walked his way, we saw him again, and 
— and really that's all." 

As that was all the rum and water, too, or, in other words, as R. W. 
delicately signified that his glass was empty by throwing back his 
head and standing the glass upside down on his nose and upper lip, 
it might have been charitable in Mrs. Wilfer to suggest replenish- 
ment. But that heroine briefly suggesting "Bedtime" instead, 
the bottles were put away, and the family retired ; she cherubically 
escorted, like some severe saint in a painting, or merely human 
matron allegorically treated. 

"And by this time to-morrow," said Lavinia when the two girls 
were alone in their room, " we shall have Mr. Rokesmith here, and 
shall be expecting to have our throats cut." 

"You needn't stand between me and the candle for all that," 
retorted Bella. "This is another of the consequences of being 



40 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

poor ! The idea of a girl with a really fine head of hair, having 
to do it by one flat candle and a few inches of looking-glass ! " 

" You caught George Sampson with it, Bella, bad as your means 
of dressing it are." 

" You low little thing. Caught George Sampson with it ! 
Don't talk about catching people, miss, till your own time for 
catching — as you call it — comes." 

"Perhaps it has come," muttered Lawy, with a toss of her 
head. 

" What did you say ? " asked Bella, very sharply. " What did 
you say, miss ? " 

Lavvy declining equally to repeat or to explain, Bella gradually 
lapsed over her hair-dressing into a soliloquy on the miseries of being 
poor, as exemplified in having nothing to put on, nothing to go out 
in, nothing to dress by, only a nasty box to dress at instead of a 
commodious dressing-table, and being obliged to take in suspi- 
cious lodgers. On the last grievance as her climax she laid great 
stress — and might have laid greater, had she known that if Mr. 
Julius Handford had a twin brother upon earth, Mr. John Rokesmith 
was the man. 



CHAPTER V. 

boffin's bower. 

Over against a London house, a corner house not far from Caven- 
dish Square, a man with a wooden leg had sat for some years, with 
his remaining foot in a basket in cold weather, picking up a living 
on this wise : — Every morning at eight o'clock, he stumped to the 
corner, carrying a chair, a clothes-horse, a pair of trestles, a board, 
a basket, and an umbrella, all strapped together. Separating 
these, the board and trestles became a counter, the basket supplied 
the few small lots of fruit and sweets that he offered for sale upon 
it and became a foot-warmer, the unfolded clothes-horse displayed a 
choice collection of halfpenny ballads and became a screen, and 
the stool planted within it became his post for the rest of the day. 
All weathers saw the man at the post. This is to be accepted in 
a double sense, for he contrived a back to his wooden stool by plac- 
ing it against the lamp-post. When the weather was wet, he put 
up his umbrella over his stock-in-trade, not over himself; when 
the weather was dry, he furled that faded article, tied it round 
with a piece of yarn, and laid it cross-wise under the trestles : 
where it looked like an unwholesomely-forced lettuce that had lost 
in colour and crispness what it had gained in size. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 41 

He had established his right to the corner by imperceptible pre- 
scription. He had never varied his ground an inch, but had in the 
beginning diffidently taken the corner upon which the side of the 
house gave. A howling corner in the winter time, a dusty corner 
in the summer time, an undesirable corner at the best of times. 
Shelterless fragments of straw and paper got up revolving storms 
there, when the main street was at peace ; and the water-cart, as 
if it were drunk or short-sighted, came blundering and jolting round 
it making it muddy when all else was clean. 

On the front of his sale-board hung a little placard, like a kettle- 
holder, bearing the inscription in his own small text : 



Errands gone 

On withfi 

Deliiy By 

Ladies and Gentlemen 

I remain 

Your hurrible Serv^- 

Silas Wegg. 



He had not only settled it with himself in the course of time, 
that he was errand-goer by appointment to the house at the 
corner (though he received such commissions not half-a-dozen times 
in a year, and then only as some servant's deputy), but also that 
he was one of the house retainers and owed vassalage to it and 
was bound to leal and loyal interest in it. For this reason, he 
always spoke of it as "Our House," and, though his knowledge of 
its affairs was mostly speculative and all wrong, claimed to be in 
its confidence. On similar grounds he never beheld an inmate at 
any one of its windows but he touched his hat. Yet, he knew so 
little about the inmates that he gave them names of his own inven- 
tion: as "Miss Elizabeth," "Master George," "Aunt Jane," "Uncle 
Parker " — having no authority whatever for any such designations, 
but particularly the last — to which, as a natural consequence, he 
stuck with great obstinacy. 

Over the house itself, he exercised the same imaginary power as 
over its inhabitants and their affairs. He had never been in it, 
the length of a piece of fat black water-pipe which trailed itself 
over the area door into a damp stone passage, and had rather the 
air of a leech on the house that had "taken" wonderfully; but 
this was no impediment to his arranging it according to a plan of 
his own. It was a great dingy house with a quantity of dim side 
window and blank back premises, and it cost his mind a world of 
trouble so to lay it out as to account for everything in its external 



42 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

appearance. But, this once done, was quite satisfactory, and lie 
rested persuaded that he knew his way about the house Windfold : 
from the barred garrets in the high roof, to the two iron extinguish- 
ers before the main door — which seemed to request all lively visi- 
tors to have the kindness to put themselves out, before entering. 

Assuredly, this stall of Silas Wegg's was the hardest little stall 
of all the sterile little stalls in London. It gave you the face-ache 
to look at his apples, the stomach-ache to look at his oranges, the 
tooth-ache to look at his nuts. Of the latter commodity he had 
always a grim little heap, on which lay a Httle wooden measure which 
had no discernible inside, and was considered to represent the 
penn'orth appointed by Magna Charta. Whether from too much 
east wind or no — it was an easterly corner — the stall, the stock, 
and the keeper, were all as dry as the Desert. Wegg was a knotty 
man, and a close-grained, with a face carved out of very hard 
material, that had just as much play of expression as a watchman's 
rattle. When he laughed, certain jerks occurred in it, and the rat- 
tle sprung. Sooth to say, he was so wooden a man that he seemed 
to have taken his wooden leg naturally, and rather suggested to the 
fanciful observer, that he might be expected — if his development 
received no untimely check — to be completely set up with a pair 
of wooden legs in about six months. 

Mr. Wegg was an observant person, or, as he himself said, "took 
a powerful sight of notice." He saluted all his regular passers-by 
every day, as he sat on his stool backed-up by the lamp-post ; and 
on the adaptable character of these salutes he greatly plumed him- 
self. Thus, to the rector, he addressed a bow, compounded of lay 
deference, and a slight touch of the shady preliminary meditation 
at church; to the doctor, a confidential bow, as to a gentleman 
whose acquaintance with his inside he begged respectfully to 
acknowledge; before the quality he delighted to abase himself; 
and for Uncle Parker, who was in the army (at least, so he had 
settled it), he put his open hand to the side of his hat, in a miUtary 
manner which that angry-eyed buttoned-up inflammatory-faced old 
gentleman appeared but imperfectly to appreciate. 

The only article in which Silas dealt, that was not hard, was 
gingerbread. On a certain day, some wretched infant having pur- 
chased the damp gingerbread-horse (fearfully out of condition), and 
the adhesive bird-cage, which had been exposed for the day's sale, 
he had taken a tin box from under his stool to produce a relay of 
those dreadful specimens, and was going to look in at the lid, when 
he said to himself, pausing : " Oh ! Here you are again ! " 

The words referred to a broad, round-shouldered, one-sided old 
fellow in mourning, coming comically ambling towards the corner. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 43 

dressed in a pea overcoat, and carrying a large stick. He wore 
thick shoes, and thick leather gaiters, and thick gloves like a 
hedger's. Both as to his dress and to himself, he was of an over- 
lapping rhinoceros build, with folds in his cheeks, and his fore- 
head, and his eyelids, and his lips, and his ears ; but with 
bright, eager, childishly-inquiring grey eyes, under his ragged eye- 
brows, and broad-brimmed hat. A very odd-looking old fellow 
altogether. 

" Here you are again," repeated Mr. Wegg, musing. " And 
what are you now? Are you in the Funns, or where are you? 
Have you lately come to settle in this neighbourhood, or do you 
own to another neighbourhood ? Are you in independent circum- 
stances, or is it wasting the motions of a bow on you ? Come ! 
I'll speculate ! I'll invest a bow in you." 

Which Mr. Wegg, having replaced his tin box, accordingly did, 
as he rose to bait his gingerbread-trap for some other devoted 
infant. The salute was acknowledged with : 

" Morning, sir ! Morning ! Morning ! " 

("Calls me Sir !" said Mr. Wegg to himself. ''He won't 
answer. A bow gone ! ") 

" Morning, morning, morning ! " 

"Appears to be rather a 'arty old cock, too," said Mr. Wegg, as 
before. " Good morning to you, sir." 

"Do you remember me, then?" asked his new acquaintance, 
stopping in his amble, one-sided, before the stall, and speaking in 
a pouncing way, though with great good-humour. 

" I have noticed you go past our house, sir, several times in the 
course of the last week or so." 

" Our house," repeated the other. " Meaning ? " 

"Yes," said Mr. Wegg, nodding, as the other pointed the clumsy 
forefinger of his right glove at the corner house. 

"Oh! Now, what," pursued the old fellow, in an inquisitive 
manner, carrying his knotted stick in his left arm as if it were a 
baby, "what do they allow you now?" 

"It's job work that I do for our house," returned Silas, drily, 
and with reticence; "it's not yet brought to an exact allow- 
ance." 

" Oh ! It's not yet brought to an exact allowance ? No ! It's 
not yet brought to an exact allowance. Oh ! — Morning, morning, 
morning ! " 

"Appears to be rather a cracked old cock," thought Silas, quali- 
fying his former good opinion, as the other ambled off. But, in a 
moment he was back again with the question : 

" How did you get your wooden leg ? " 



44 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Mr. Wegg replied (tartly to this personal inquiry), "In an 
accident." 

"Do you like it?" 

"Well! I haven't got to keep it warm," Mr. Wegg made 
answer, in a sort of desperation occasioned by the singularity of 
the question. 

" He hasn't," repeated the other to his knotted stick, as he gave 
it a hug ; " he hasn't got — ha ! — ha ! — to keep it warm ! Did 
you ever hear the name of Boffin?" 

"No," said Mr. Wegg, who was growing restive under this 
examination, " I never did hear of the name of Boffin." 

" Do you like it ? " 

"Why, no," retorted Mr. Wegg, again approaching desperation; 
" I can't say I do." 

" Why don't you like it ? " 

" I don't know why I don't," retorted Mr. Wegg, approaching 
frenzy, " but I don't at all." 

" Now, I'll tell you something that'll make you sorry for that," 
said the stranger, smiling. " My name's Boffin." 

"I can't help it ! " returned Mr. Wegg. Implying in his manner 
the offensive addition, "and if I could, I wouldn't." 

" But there's another chance for you," said Mr. Boffin, smiling 
still. "Do you like the name of Nicodemus ? Think it over. 
Nick, or Noddy." 

" It is not, sir," Mr. Wegg rejoined, as he sat down on his stool, 
with an air of gentle resignation, combined with melancholy can- 
dour; "it is not a name as I could wish any one that I had a 
respect for, to call me by; but there may be persons that would 
not view it with the same objections. — I don't know why," Mr. 
Wegg added, anticipating another question. 

"Noddy Boffin," said that gentleman. "Noddy. That's my 
name. Noddy — or Nick — Boffin. What's your name ? " 

" Silas Wegg. — I don't," said Mr. Wegg, bestirring himself to 
take the same precaution as before, "I don't know why Silas, and 
I don't know why Wegg." 

" Now, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin, hugging his stick closer, "I want 
to make a sort of offer to you. Do you remember when you 
first see me?" 

The wooden leg looked at him with a meditative eye, and also 
with a softened air as descrying possibility of profit. "Let me 
think. I ain't quite sure, and yet I generally take a powerful sight 
of notice, too. Was it on a Monday morning, when the butcher-boy 
had been to our house for orders, and bought a ballad of me, which, 
being unacquainted with the tune, I run it over to him ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 45 

" Right, Wegg, right ! But he bought more than one." 

" Yes, to be sure, sir ; he bought several ; and wishing to lay out 
his money to the best, he took my opinion to guide his choice, and 
we went over the collection together. To be sure we did. Here 
was him as it might be, and here was myself as it might be, and 
there was you, Mr. Boffin, as you identically are, with your self- 
same stick under your very same arm, and your very same back 
towards us. To — be — sure ! " added Mr. Wegg, looking a little 
round Mr. Boffin, to take him in the rear, and identify this last 
extraordinary coincidence, " your wery self-same back! " 

" What do you think I was doing, Wegg ? " 

" I should judge, sir, that you might be glancing your eye down 
the street." 

"No, Wegg. I was a listening." 

" Was you, indeed ? " said Mr. Wegg, dubiously. 

" Not in a dishonourable way, Wegg, because you were singing 
to the butcher; and you wouldn't sing secrets to a butcher in the 
street, you know." 

" It never happened that I did so yet, to the best of my remem- 
brance," said Mr. Wegg, cautiously. "But I might do it. A man 
can't say what he might wish to do some day or another." (This, 
not to release any little advantage he might derive from Mr. Boffin's 
avowal.) 

"Well," repeated Boffin, " I was a listening to you and to him. 
And what do you — you haven't got another stool, have you? I'm 
rather thick in my breath." 

"I haven't got another, but you're welcome to this," said Wegg, 
resigning it. " It's a treat to me to stand." 

" Lard! " exclaimed Mr. Boffin, in a tone of great enjoyment, as 
he settled himself down, still nursing his stick like a baby, " it's a 
pleasant place, this ! And then to be shut in on each side, with 
these ballads, like so many book-leaf blinkers ! Why, it's delightful ! " 

" If I am not mistaken, sir," Mr. Wegg delicately hinted, rest- 
ing a hand on his stall, and bending over the discursive Boffin, "you 
alluded to some offer or another that was in your mind?" 

" I'm coming to it ! All right. I'm coming to it ! I was going 
to say that when I listened that morning, I listened with hadmira- 
tion amounting to haw. I thought to myself, ' Here's a man with 
a wooden leg — a literary man with ' " 

" N — not exactly so, sir," said Mr. Wegg. 

" Why, you know every one of these songs by name and by tune, 
and if you want to read or to sing any one on 'em off straight, 
you've only to whip on your spectacles and do it ! " cried Mr. 
Boffin. "I see you at it!" 



46 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Well, sir," returned Mr. Wegg, with a conscious inclination of 
the head ; " we'll say literary, then." 

" ' A literary man — ivith a wooden leg — and all Print is ojDen 
to him!' That's what I thought to myself, that morning," pur- 
sued Mr. Boffin, leaning forward to describe, uncramped by the 
clothes-horse, as large an arc as his right arm could make ; '"all 
Print is open to him ! ' And it is, ain't it 1 " 

"Why, truly, sir," Mr. Wegg admitted with modesty; "I 
believe you couldn't show me the piece of English print, that I 
wouldn't be equal to collaring and throwing." 

" On the spot ? " said Mr. Boffin. 

" On the spot." 

" I know'd it ! Then consider this. Here am I, a man w^ithout 
a wooden leg, and yet all print is shut to me." 

"Indeed, sir? "Mr. Wegg returned with increasing self-compla- 
cency. " Education neglected?" 

" Neg — lected ! " repeated Boffin, with emphasis. " That ain't 
no word for it. I don't mean to say but what if you showed me a 
B, I could so far give you change for it, as to answer Boffin." 

" Come, come, sir," said Mr. Wegg, throwing in a little encourage- 
ment, "that's something, too." 

"It's something," answered Mr. Boffin, "but I'll take my oath 
it ain't much." 

" Perhaps it's not as much as could be wished by an inquiring 
mind, sir," Mr. Wegg admitted. 

"Now, look here. I'm retired from business. Me and Mrs. 
Boffin — Henerietty Boffin — which her father's name was Henery, 
and her mother's name was Hetty, and so you get it — we live on 
a compittance, under the will of a diseased governor." 

" Gentleman dead, sir ? " 

" Man alive, don't I tell you ? A diseased governor 1 Now, it's 
too late for me to begin shovelling and sifting at alphabeds and 
grammar-books. I'm getting to be an old bird, and I want to take 
it easy. But I want some reading — some fine bold reading, some 
splendid book in a gorging Lord-Mayor's-Show of wollumes " (prob- 
ably meaning gorgeous, but misled by association of ideas); "as'll 
reach right down your pint of view, and take time to go by you. 
How can I get that reading, Wegg ? By," tapping him on the 
breast with the head of his thick stick, " paying a man truly quali- 
fied to do it, so much an hour (say twopence) to come and do it." 

"Hem! Flattered, sir, I am sure," said Wegg, beginning to 
regard himself in quite a new light, " Hem ! This is the offer 
you mentioned, sir ? " 

"Yes. Doyoulike.it?" 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 47 

" I am considering of it, Mr. Boffin." 

"I don't," said Boffin, in a free-handed manner, " want to tie a 
literary man — tvith a wooden leg — down too tight. A halfpenny 
an hour shan't part us. The hours are your own to choose, after 
you've done for the day with your house here. I live over Maiden 
Lane way — out Hollo way direction — and you've only got to goEast- 
and'by-North when you've finished here, and you're there. Two- 
pence half-penny an hour," said Boffin, taking a piece of chalk from 
his pocket and getting off the stool to work the sum on the top of 
it in his own way; " two long'uns and a short'un — twopence half- 
penny; two short'uns is a long'un, and two two long'uns is four 
long'uns — making five long'uns ; six nights a week at five long'uns 
a night," scoring them all down separately, "and you mount up to 
thirty long'uns. A round'un ! Half a crown ! " 

Pointing to this result as a large and satisfactory one, Mr. Boffin 
smeared it out with his moistened glove, and sat down on the 
remains. 

" Half a crown," said Wegg, meditating. " Yes. (It ain't much, 
sir.) Half a crown." 

" Per week, you know." 

" Per week. Yes. As to the amount of strain upon the intel- 
lect now. Was you thinking at all of poetry ? " Mr. Wegg in- 
quired, musing. 

" Would it come dearer 1 " Mr. Boffin asked. 

" It would come dearer," Mr. Wegg returned. " For when a per- 
son comes to grind off poetry night after night, it is but right he 
should expect to be paid for its weakening effect on his mind." 

" To tell you the truth, Wegg," said Boffin, " I wasn't thinking 
of poetry, except in so fur as this : — If you was to happen now 
and then to feel yourself in the mind to tip me and Mrs. Boffin one 
of your ballads, why then we should drop into poetry." 

" I follow you, sir," said Wegg. "But not being a regular musi- 
cal professional, I should be loath to engage myself for that ; and 
therefore when I dropped into poetry, I should ask to be considered 
in the light of a friend." 

At this, Mr. Boffin's eyes sparkled, and he shook Silas ear- 
nestly by the hand : protesting that it was more than he could 
have asked, and that he took it very kindly indeed. 

"What do you think of the terms, Wegg?" Mr. Boffin then 
demanded, with unconcealed anxiety. 

Silas, who had stimulated this anxiety by his hard reserve of 
manner, and who had begun to understand his man very well, re- 
plied with an air; as if he were saying something extraordinarily 
generous and great : 



48 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Mr. Boffin, I never bargain." 

"So I should have thought of you!" said Mr. Boffin, admir- 
ingly. 

" No, sir. I never did 'aggie and I never will 'aggie. Con- 
sequently I meet you at once, free and fair, with — Done, for 
double the money ! " 

Mr. Boffin seemed a little unprepared for this conclusion, but 
assented, with the remark, "You know better what it ought to be 
than I do, Wegg," and again shook hands with him upon it. 

"Could you begin to-night, Wegg?" he then demanded. 

" Yes, sir," said Mr. Wegg, careful to leave all the eagerness to 
him. "I see no difficulty if you wish it. You are provided with 
the needful implement — a book, sir ? " 

" Bought him at a sale," said Mr. Boffin. " Eight wollumes. 
Red and gold. Purple ribbon in every wollume, to keep the place 
where you leave off. Do you know him 1 " 

"The book's name, sir?" inquired Silas. 

" I thought you might have know'd him without it," said Mr. 
Boffin, slightly disappointed. " His name is Decline-and-Fall-Off- 
The-Rooshan-Empire." (Mr. Boffin went over these stones slowly 
and with much caution.) 

" Ay indeed ! " said Mr. Wegg, nodding his head with an air of 
friendly recognition. 

"You know him, Wegg?" 

"I haven't been not to say right slap through him, very lately," 
Mr. Wegg made answer, "having been otherways employed, Mr. 
Boffin. But know him? Old familiar declining and falling off 
the Rooshan ? Rather, sir ! Ever since I was not so high as 
your stick. Ever since my eldest brother left our cottage to en- 
list into the army. On which occasion, as the ballad that was 
made about it describes 

"Beside that cottage door, Mr. Boffin, 

A girl was on her knees ; 
She held aloft a snowy scarf, Sir, 

Which (my eldest brother noticed) fluttered in the breeze. 
She breathed a prayer for him, Mr. Boffin ; 

A prayer he coold not hear. 
And my eldest brother lean'd upon his sword, Mr. Boffin, 

And wiped away a tear." 

Much impressed by this family circumstance, and also by the 
friendly disposition of Mr. Wegg, as exemplified in his so soon 
dropping into poetry, Mr. Boffin again shook hands with that 
ligneous sharper, and besought him to name his hour. Mr. Wegg 
named eight. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 49 

."Where I live," said Mr. Boffin, "is called The Bower. 
Boffin's Bower is the name Mrs. Boffin christened it when we 
come into it as a property. If you should meet with anybody 
that don't know it by that name (which hardly anybody does), 
when you've got nigh upon about a odd mile, or say and a quar- 
ter if you like, up Maiden Lane, Battle Bridge, ask for Harmony 
Jail, and you'll be put right. I shall expect you, Wegg," said 
Mr. Boffin, clapping him on the shoulder with the greatest enthu- 
siasm, " most jyfully. I shall have no peace or patience till you 
come. Print is now opening ahead of me. This night, a literary 
man — ivith a wooden leg — " he bestowed an admiring look 
upon that decoration, as if it greatly enchanced the relish of Mr. 
Wegg's attainments — "will begin to lead me a new life! My 
fist again, Wegg. Morning, morning, morning ! " 

Left alone at his stall as the other ambled oif, Mr. Wegg sub- 
sided into his screen, produced a small pocket-handkerchief of a 
penitentially-scrubbing character, and took himself by the nose 
with a thoughtful aspect. Also, while he still grasped that feat- 
ure, he directed several thoughtful looks down the street, after 
the retiring figure of Mr. Boffin. But, profound gravity sat 
enthroned on Wegg's countenance. For, w^hile he considered 
within himself that this was an old fellow of rare simplicity, that 
this was an opportunity to be improved, and that here might be 
money to be got beyond present calculation, still he compromised 
himself by no admission that his new engagement was at all out of 
his way, or involved the least element of the ridiculous. Mr. 
Wegg would even have picked a handsome quarrel with any one 
who should have challenged his deep acquaintance with those afore- 
said eight volumes of Decline and Fall. His gravity was unusual, 
portentous, and immeasurable, not because he admitted any doubt 
of himself, but because he perceived it necessary to forestall any 
doubt of himself in others. And herein he ranged wdth that very 
numerous class of impostors, who are quite as determined to keep 
up appearances to themselves, as to their neighbours. 

A certain loftiness, likewise, took possession of Mr. Wegg; a 
condescending sense of being in request as an official expounder of 
mysteries. It did not move him to commercial greatness, but 
rather to littleness, insomuch that if it had been within the pos- 
sibilities of things for the wooden measure to hold fewer nuts than 
usual, it would have done so that day. But, when night came, 
and with her veiled eyes beheld him stumping towards Boffin's 
Bower, he was elated too. 

The Bower was as difficult to find, as Fair Eosamond's without 
the clue. Mr. Wegg, having reached the quarter indicated, in- 



so OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

quired for the Bower half-a-dozen times without the least success, 
until he remembered to ask for Harmony Jail. This occasioned a 
quick change in the spirits of a hoarse gentleman and a donkey, 
whom he had much perplexed. 

" Why, yer mean Old Harmon's, do yer ? " said the hoarse gen- 
tleman, who was driving his donkey in a truck, with a carrot for a 
whip. " Why didn't yer niver say so ? Eddard and me is a goin' 
by him ! Jump in." 

Mr. Wegg complied, and the hoarse gentleman invited his atten- 
tion to the third person in company, thus : 

" Now, you look at Eddard's ears. What was it as you named, 
agin % Whisper." 

Mr. Wegg whispered, " Boffin's Bower." 

"Eddard ! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away to Boffin's Bower ! " 
Edward, with his ears lying back, remained immovable. 

" Eddard ! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away to Old Harmon's." 

Edward instantly pricked up his ears to their utmost, and rattled 
off at such a pace that Mr. Wegg's conversation was jolted out of 
him in a most dislocated state. 

" Was-it-Ev-verajail % " asked Mr. Wegg, holding on. 

" Not a proper jail, wot you and me would get committed to," re- 
turned his escort; "they giv' it the name, on accounts of Old 
Harmon living solitary there." 
• " And-why-did-they-callitharm-Ony ? " asked Wegg. 

" On accounts of his never agreeing with nobody. Like a 
speeches of chaff. Harmon's Jail; Harmony Jail. Working it 
round like." 

" Do you know-Mist-Erboff-in % " asked Wegg, 

" I should think so ! Everybody do about here. Eddard knows 
him (Keep yer hi on his ears). Noddy Boffin, Eddard ! " 

The effect of the name was so very alarming, in respect of causing 
a temporary disappearance of Edward's head, casting his hind hoofs 
in the air, greatly accelerating the pace and increasing the jolting, 
that Mr. Wegg was fain to devote his attention exclusively to hold- 
ing on, and to relinquish his desire of ascertaining whether this 
homage to Boffin was to be considered complimentary or the re- 
verse. 

Presently, Edward stopped at a gateway, and Wegg discreetly 
lost no time in slipping out at the back of the truck. The moment 
he was landed, his late driver with a wave of the carrot, said " Sup- 
per, Eddard ! " and he, the hind hoofs, the truck, and Edward, all 
seemed to fly into the air together, in a kind of apotheosis. 

Pushing the gate, which stood ajar, Wegg looked into an en- 
closed space where certain tall dark mounds rose high against the 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 51 

sky, and where the pathway to the Bower was indicated, as the 
moonlight showed, between two lines of broken crockery set in ashes. 
A white figure advancing along this path, proved to be nothing more 
ghostly than Mr. Boffin, easily attired for the pursuit of knowledge, 
in an undress garment of short white smock-frock. Having received 
his literary friend with great cordiality, he conducted him to the 
interior of the Bower and there presented him to Mrs. Bo&n : — 
a stout lady of a rubicund and cheerful aspect, dressed (to Mr. 
Wegg's consternation) in a low evening dress of sable satin, and a 
large black velvet hat and feathers. 

"Mrs. Boffin, Wegg," said Boffin, "is a highflyer at Fashion. 
And her make is such, that she does it credit. As to myself, 1 ain't 
yet as Fash'nable as I may come to be. Henerietty, old lady, this 
is the gentleman that's a going to decline and fall off the Rooshan 
Empire." 

"And I am sure I hope it'll do you both good," said Mrs. Boffin. 

It was the queerest of rooms, fitted and furnished more like a 
luxurious amateur tap-room than anything else within the ken of 
Silas Wegg. There were two wooden settles by the fire, one on 
either side of it, with a corresponding table before each. On one 
of these tables, the eight volumes were ranged flat, in a row, like 
a galvanic battery ; on the other, certain squat case-bottles of in- 
viting appearance seemed to stand on tiptoe to exchange glances 
with Mr. Wegg over a front row of tumblers and a basin of white 
sugar. On the hob, a kettle steamed; on the hearth, a cat re- 
posed. Facing the fire between the settles, a sofa, a footstool, and 
a little table, formed a centrepiece devoted to Mrs. Boffin. They 
were garish in taste and colour, but were expensive articles of 
drawing-room furniture that had a very odd look beside the settles 
and the flaring gaslight pendent from the ceiling. There was a 
flowery carpet on the floor ; but, instead of reaching to the fireside, 
its glowing vegetation stopped short at Mrs. Boffin's footstool, and 
gave place to a region of sand and sawdust. Mr. Wegg also noticed, 
with admiring eyes, that, while the flowery land displayed such 
hollow ornamentation as stuff'ed birds and waxen fruits under glass 
shades, there were, in the territory where vegetation ceased, com- 
pensatory shelves on which the best part of a large pie and like- 
wise of a cold joint were plainly discernible among other solids. 
The room itself was large, though low ; and the heavy frames of its 
old-fashioned windows, and the heavy beams in its crooked ceiling, 
seemed to indicate that it had once been a house of some mark 
standing alone in the country. 

"Do you like it, Wegg?" asked Mr. Boffin, in his pouncing 
manner. 



52 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"I admire it greatly, sir," said Wegg. "Peculiar comfort at 
this fireside, sir." 

"Do you understand it, Wegg?" 

"Why, in a general way, sir," Mr. Wegg was beginning slowly 
and knowingly, with his head stuck on one side, as evasive people 
do begin, when the other cut him short : 

"You clonH understand it, Wegg, and I'll explain it. These 
arrangements is made by mutual consent between Mrs. Boffin and 
me. Mrs. Boffin, as I've mentioned, is a highflyer at Fashion; 
at present I'm not. I don't go higher than comfort, and comfort 
of the sort that I'm equal to the enjoyment of. Well then. Where 
would be the good of Mrs. Boffin and me quarrelling over it 1 We 
never did quarrel, before we come into Boffin's Bower as a property ; 
why quarrel when we have come into Boffin's Bower as a property ? 
So Mrs. Boffin, she keeps up her part of the room, in her way ; I 
keep up my part of the room in mine. In consequence of which 
we have at once. Sociability (I should go melancholy mad without 
Mrs. Boffin), Fashion, and Comfort. If I get by degrees to be a 
highflyer at Fashion, then Mrs. Boffin will by degrees come for'arder. 
If Mrs. Boffin should ever be less of a dab at Fashion than she is 
at the present time, then Mrs. Boffin's carpet would go back'arder. 
If we should both continny as we are, why then here we are, and 
give us a kiss, old lady." 

Mrs. Boffin, who, perpetually smiling, had approached and drawn 
her plump arm through her lord's, most willingly complied. Fash- 
ion, in the form of her black velvet hat and feathers, tried to pre- 
vent it ; but got deservedly crushed in the endeavour. 

" So now, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin, wiping his mouth with an air 
of much refreshment, "you begin to know us as we are. This is 
a charming spot, is the Bower, but you must get to appreciate it 
by degrees. It's a spot to find out the merits of, little by little, and 
a new 'un every day. There's a serpentining walk up each of the 
mounds, that gives you the yard and neighbourhood changing every 
moment. When you get to the top, there's a view of the neigh- 
bouring premises, not to be surpassed. The premises of Mrs. 
Boffin's late father (Canine Provision Trade), you look down into, 
as if they was your own. And the top of the High Mound 
is crowned with a lattice-work Arbour, in which, if you don't read 
out loud many a book in the summer, ay, and as a friend, drop 
many a time into poetry too, it shan't be my fault. Now, what'll 
you read on 1 " 

"Thank you, sir," returned Wegg, as if there were nothing 
new in his reading at all. " I generally do it on gin and water." 

" Keeps the organ moist, does it, Wegg 1 " asked Mr. Boffin 
with innocent eagerness. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 53 

" N-no, sir," replied Wegg, coolly, " I should hardly describe it 
so, sir. I should say, mellers it. Mellers it, is the word I should 
employ, Mr. Boffin." 

His wooden conceit and craft kept exact pace with the delighted 
expectation of his victim. The visions rising before his mercenary 
mind, of the many ways in which this connection was to be turned 
to account, never obscured the foremost idea natural to a dull over- 
reaching man, that he must not make himself too cheap. 

Mrs. Boffin's Fashion, as a less inexorable deity than the idol 
usually worshipped under that name, did not forbid her mixing for 
her literary guest, or asking if he found the result to his liking. 
On his returning a gracious answer and taking his place at the 
literary settle, Mr. Boffin began to compose himself as a listener, 
at the opposite settle, with exultant eyes. 

"Sorry to deprive you of a pipe, Wegg," he said, filling hi« 
own, "but you can't do both together. Oh ! and another thing I 
forgot to name ! When you come in here of an evening, and look 
round you, and notice anything on a shelf that happens to catch 
your fancy, mention it." 

Wegg, who had been going to put on his spectacles, immediately 
laid them down, with the sprightly observation : 

"You read my thoughts, sir. Do my eyes deceive me, or is 
that object up there a — a pie ? It can't be a pie." 

"Yes, it's a pie, Wegg," replied Mr. Boffin, with a glance of 
some little discomfiture at the Decline and Fall. 

^^ Have I lost my smell for fruits, or is it a apple pie, sir?" 
asked Wegg. 

"It's a veal and ham pie," said Mr. Boffin. 

" Is it, indeed, sir 1 And it would be hard, sir, to name the pie 
that is a better pie than a weal and hammer," said Mr. Wegg, 
nodding his head emotionally. 

" Have some, Wegg 1 " 

" Thank you, Mr. Boffin, I think I will, at your invitation. I 
wouldn't at any other party's, at the present juncture; but at 
yours, sir ! — And meaty jelly too, especially when a little salt, 
which is the case where there's ham, is mellering to the organ, is 
very mellering to the organ." Mr. Wegg did not say what organ, 
but spoke with a cheerful generality. 

So the pie was brought down, and the worthy Mr. Boffin exer- 
cised his patience until Wegg, in the exercise of his knife and 
fork, had finished the dish : only profiting by the opportunity to 
inform Wegg that although it was not strictly Fashionable to keep 
the contents of a larder thus exposed to view, he (Mr. Boffin) 
considered it hospitable : for the reason, that instead of saying, in 



54 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

a comparatively unmeaning manner, to a visitor, " There are such 
and such edibles downstairs; will you have anything up?" you 
took the bold practical course of saying, " Cast your eye along the 
shelves, and, if you see anything you like there, have it down." 

And now, Mr. Wegg at length pushed away his plate and put 
on his spectacles, and Mr. Boffin lighted his pipe and looked with 
beaming eyes into the opening world before him, and Mrs. Boffin 
reclined in a fashionable manner on her sofa : as one who would be 
part of the audience if she found she could, and would go to sleep 
if she found she couldn't. 

" Hem ! " began Wegg. " This, Mr. Boffin and Lady, is the first 

chapter of the first wollume of the Decline and Fall off " 

here he looked hard at the book, and stopped. 

" What's the matter, Wegg ? " 

"Why, it comes into my mind, do you know, sir," said Wegg 
with an air of insinuating frankness (having first again looked hard 
at the book), " that you made a little mistake this morning, which 
I had meant to set you right in, only something put it out of my 
head. I think you said Kooshan Empire, sir ? " 

" It is Rooshan ; ain't it, Wegg ? " 

"No, sir. Roman. Roman." 

"What's the difference, Wegg?" 

"The difference, sir?" Mr. Wegg was faltering and in danger 
of breaking down, when a bright thought flashed upon him. " The 
diff'erence, sir? There you place me in a difficulty, Mr. Boffin. 
Suffice it to observe, that the difference is best postponed to some 
other occasion when Mrs. Boffin does not honour us with her com- 
pany. In Mrs. Boffin's presence, sir, we had better drop it." 

Mr. Wegg thus came out of his disadvantage with quite a chiv- 
alrous air, and not only that, but by dint of repeating with a manly 
delicacy, " In Mrs. Boffin's presence, sir, we had better drop it ! " 
turned the disadvantage on Boffin, who felt that he had committed 
himself in a very painful manner. 

Then, Mr. Wegg, in a dry unflinching way, entered on his task ; 
going straight across country at everything that came before him ; 
taking all the hard words, biographical and geographical ; getting 
rather shaken by Hadrian, Trajan, and the Antonines ; stumbling at 
Polybius (pronounced Polly Beeious, and supposed by Mr. Boffin to 
be a Roman virgin, and by Mrs. Boffin to be responsible for that 
necessity of dropping it); heavily unseated by Titus Antoninus 
Pius ; up again and galloping smoothly with Augustus ; finally, get- 
ting over the ground well with Oommodus ; who, under the appella- 
tion of Commodious, was held by Mr. Boffin to have been quite 
unworthy of his English origin, and " not to have acted up to his 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 55 

name " in his government of the Roman people. With the death 
of this personage, Mr. Wegg terminated his first reading ; long 
before which consummation several total eclipses of Mrs, Boffin's 
candle behind her black velvet disc, would have been very alarm- 
ing, but for being regularly accompanied by a potent smell of 
burnt pens when her feathers took fire, which acted as a restora- 
tive and woke her. Mr. Wegg having read on by rote and at- 
tached as few ideas as possible to the text, came out of the encounter 
fresh; but, Mr. Boffin, who had soon laid down his unfinished 
pipe, and had ever since sat intently staring with his eyes and 
mind at the confounding enormities of the Romans, was so severely 
punished that he could hardly wish his literary friend Good night, 
and articulate " To-morrow." 

"Commodious," gasped Mr. Boffin, staring at the moon, after 
letting Wegg out of the gate and fastening it : " Commodious 
fights in that wild-beast-show, seven hundred and thirty-five times, 
in one character only ! As if that wasn't stunning enough, a hun- 
dred lions is turned into the same wild-beast-show all at once ! As 
if that wasn't stunning enough, Commodious, in another character, 
kills 'em all off in a hundred goes ! As if that wasn't stunning 
enough, Vittle-us (and well named too) eats six millions' worth, 
English money, in seven months ! Wegg takes it easy, but upon- 
my-soul to a old bird like myself these are scarers. And even now 
that Commodious is strangled, I don't see a way to our bettering 
ourselves." Mr. Boffin added as he turned his pensive steps 
towards the Bower and shook his head, " I didn't think this morn- 
ing there was half so many Scarers in Print. But I'm in for it 



now 



i» 



CHAPTER VI. 

CUT ADRIFT. 

The Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, already mentioned as a tavern 
of a dropsical appearance, had long settled down into a state of 
hale infirmity. In its whole constitution it had not a straight floor, 
and hardly a straight line ; but it had outlasted, and clearly would 
yet outlast, many a better-trimmed building, many a sprucer public- 
house. Externally, it was a narrow lopsided wooden jumble of 
corpulent windows heaped one upon another as you might heap as 
many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden verandah impending 
over the water; indeed the whole house, inclusive of the com- 
plaining flagstaff on the roof, impended over the water, but seemed 
to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver who has paused 
so long on the brink that he will never go in at all. 



66 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

This description applies to the river-frontage of the Six Jolly 
Fellowship-Porters. The back of the establishment, though the 
chief entrance was there, so contracted, that it merely rej^resented 
in its connection with the front, the handle of a flat-iron set upright 
on its broadest end. This handle stood at the bottom of a wilder- 
ness of court and alley : which wilderness pressed so hard and close 
upon the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters as to leave the hostelry not 
an inch of ground beyond its door. For this reason, in combination 
with the fact that the house was all but afloat at high water, when 
the Porters had a family wash the linen subjected to that opera- 
tion might usually be seen drying on lines stretched across the 
reception-rooms and bed-chambers. 

The wood forming the chimney-pieces, beams, partitions, floors, 
and doors, of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, seemed in its old 
age fraught with confused memories of its youth. In many places 
it had become gnarled and riven, according to the manner of old 
trees ; knots started out of it ; and here and there it seemed to 
twist itself into some likeness of boughs. In this state of second 
childhood, it had an air of being in its own way garrulous about its 
early life. Not without reason was it often asserted by the regular 
frequenters of the Porters, that when the light shone full upon the 
grain of certain panels, and particularly upon an old corner cup- 
board of walnut-wood in the bar, you might trace little forests 
there, and tiny trees like the parent tree, in full umbrageous leaf. 

The bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters was a bar to soften 
the human breast. The available space in it was not much larger 
than a hackney-coach ; but no one could have wished the bar bigger, 
that space was so girt in by corpulent little casks, and by cordial- 
battles radiant with fictitious grapes in bunches, and by lemons in 
nets, and by biscuits in baskets, and by the polite beer-pulls that 
made low bows when customers were served with beer, and by the 
cheese in a snug corner, and by the landlady's own small table in a 
snugger corner near the fire, with the cloth everlastingly laid. 
This haven was divided from the rough world by a glass partition 
and a half-door with a leaden sill upon it for the convenience of 
resting your liquor ; but, over this half-door the bar's snugness so 
gushed forth, that, albeit customers drank there standing, in a dark 
and draughty passage where they were shouldered by otlier cus- 
tomers passing in and out, they always appeared to drink under an 
enchanting delusion that they were in the bar itself. 

For the rest, both the tap and parlour of the Six Jolly Fellow- 
ship-Porters gave upon the river, and had red curtains matching 
the noses of the regular customers, and were provided with com- 
fortable fireside tin utensils, like models of sugar-loaf hats, made in 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 57 

that shape that they might, with their pointed ends, seek out for 
themselves glowing nooks in the depths of the red coals, when they 
mulled your ale, or heated for you those delectable drinks. Purl, 
Flip, and Dog's Nose. The first of these humming compounds was 
a speciality of the Porters, which, through an inscription on its 
door-posts, gently appealed to your feelings as, " The Early Purl 
House." For, it would seem that Purl must always be taken early ; 
though whether for any more distinctly stomachic reason than that, 
as the early bird catches the worm, so the early purl catches the 
customer, cannot here be resolved. It only remains to add that in 
the handle of the flat-iron, and opposite the bar, was a very little 
room like a three-cornered hat, into which no direct ray of sun, 
moon, or star, ever penetrated, but which w^as superstitiously re- 
garded as a sanctuary replete with comfort and retirement by gas- 
light, and on the door of which was therefore painted its alluring 
name : Cosy. 

Miss Potterson, sole proprietor and manager of the Fellowship- 
Porters, reigned supreme on her throne, the Bar, and a man must 
have drunk himself mad drunk indeed if he thought he could contest 
a point with her. Being known on her own authority as Miss 
Abbey Potterson, some water-side heads, which (like the water) 
were none of the clearest, harboured muddled notions that, because 
of her dignity and firmness, she was named after, or in some sort 
related to, the Abbey at Westminster, But Abbey was only short 
for Abigail, by which name Miss Potterson had been christened at 
Limehouse Church, some sixty and odd years before. 

"Now, you mind, you Riderhood," said Miss Abbey Potterson, 
with emphatic forefinger over the half-door, " the Fellowships don't 
want you at all, and would rather by far have your room than your 
company ; but if you were as welcome here as you are not, you 
shouldn't even then have another drop of drink here this night, 
after this present pint of beer. So make the most of it." 

"But you know, Miss Potterson," this was suggested very 
meekly though, "if I behave myself, you can't help serving me, 
miss." 

" Can't I ! " said Abbey, with infinite expression. 

" No, Miss Potterson ; because, you see, the law " 

"/am the law here, my man," returned Miss Abbey, " and I'll 
soon convince you of that, if you doubt it at all." 

" I never said I did doubt it at all. Miss Abbey." 

" So much the better for you." 

Abbey the supreme threw the customer's halfpence into the till, 
and, seating herself in her fireside chair, resumed the newspaper she 
had been reading. She was a tall, upright, well-favoured woman. 




AT THE BAR. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 59 

though severe of coimtenauce, and had more of the air of a school- 
mistress than mistress of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters. The 
man on the other side of the half-door, was a water-side man with 
a squinting leer, and he eyed her as if he were one of her pupils in 
disgrace. 

"You're cruel hard upon me, Miss Potterson." 

Miss Potterson read her newspaper with contracted brows, and 
took no notice until he whispered : 

" Miss Potterson ! Ma'am ! Might I have half a word with 
you?" 

Deigning then to turn her eyes sideways towards the suppliant, 
.Miss Potterson beheld him knuckling his low forehead, and duck- 
ing at her with his head, as if he were asking leave to fling himself 
head foremost over the half-door and alight on his feet in the bar. 

" Well 1 " said Miss Potterson, with a manner as short as she 
herself was long, " say your half word. Bring it out." 

"Miss Potterson ! Ma'am ! Would you 'sxcuse me taking the 
liberty of asking, is it my character that you take objections to 1 " 

" Certainly," said Miss Potterson. 

"Is it that you're afraid of " 

"I am not afraid of yow," interposed Miss Potterson, "if you 
mean that." 

" But I humbly don't mean that, Miss Abbey." 

" Then what do you mean ? " 

" You really are so cruel hard upon me ! What I was going to 
make inquiries was no more than, might you have any apprehen- 
sions — leastways beliefs or suppositious — that the company's 
property mightn't be altogether to be considered safe, if I used the 
house too regular ? " 

" What do you want to know for ? " 

" Well, Miss Abbey, respectfully meaning no offence to you, it 
would be some satisfaction to a man's mind, to understand why 
the Fellowship-Porters is not to be free to such as me, and is to 
be free to such as Gaffer." 

The face of the hostess darkened with some shadow of perplex- 
ity, as she replied : " Gaffer has never been where you have been." 

" Signifying in Quod, Miss ? Perhaps not. But he may have 
merited it. He may be suspected of far worse than ever I was." 

" Who suspects him ? " 

" Many, perhaps. One, beyond all doubts. I do." 

" Yoic are not much," said Miss Abbey Potterson, knitting 
her brows again with disdain. 

"But I was his pardner. Mind you. Miss Abbey, I was his 
pardner. As such I know more of the ins and outs of him than 



60 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

any person living does. Notice tins ! I am the man that was 
his pardner, and I am the man that suspects him." 

"Then," suggested Miss Abbey, though with a deeper shade of 
perplexity than before, "you criminate yourself." 

" No I don't, Miss Abbey. For how does it stand ? It stands 
this way. When I was his pardner, I couldn't never give him 
satisfaction. Why couldn't I never give him satisfaction 1 Be^ 
cause my luck was bad; because I couldn't find many enough 
of 'em. How was his luck 1 Always good. Notice this ! Al- 
ways good ! Ah ! There's a many games. Miss Abbey, in which 
there's chance, but there's a many others in which there's skill too, 
mixed along with it." 

" That Gaffer has a skill in finding what he finds, who doubts, 
man ? " asked Miss Abbey. 

"A skill in purwiding what he finds, perhaps," said Riderhood, 
shaking his evil head. 

Miss Abbey knitted her brow at him, as he darkly leered at her. 

" If you're out upon the river pretty nigh every tide, and if yon 
want to find a man or woman in the river, you'll greatly help your 
luck. Miss Abbey, by knocking a man or woman on the head afore- 
hand and pitching 'em in." 

" Gracious Lud ! " was the involuntary exclamation of Miss 
Potterson. 

" Mind you ! " returned the other, stretching forward over the 
half-door to throw his words into the bar ; for his voice was as if 
the head of his boat's mop were down his throat; "I say so, 
Miss Abbey ! And mind you ! I'll follow him up, Miss Abbey ! 
And mind you ! I'll bring him to book at last, if it's twenty year 
hence, I will ! Who's he, to be favoured along of his daughter ? 
Ain't I goi a daughter of my own ! " 

With that flourish, and seeming to have talked himself rather 
more drunk and much more ferocious than he had begun by being, 
Mr. Riderhood took up his pint pot and swaggered off to the tap- 
room. 

Gaffer was not there, but a pretty strong muster of Miss Abbey's 
pupils were, who exhibited, when occasion required, the greatest 
docility. On the clock's striking ten, and Miss Abbey's appearing 
at the door, and addressing a certain person in a faded scarlet 
jacket, with " George Jones, your time's up ! I told your wife 
you should be punctual," Jones submissively rose, gave the com- 
pany good night, and retired. At half-past ten, on Miss Abbey's 
looking in again, and saying, "William Williams," Bob Glamour, 
and Jonathan, you are all due," Williams, Bob, and Jonathan with 
similar meekness took their leave and evaporated. Greater wonder 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 61 

than these, when a bottle-nosed person in a glazed hat had after 
some considerable hesitation ordered another glass of gin and water 
of the attendant potboy, and when Miss Abbey, instead of send- 
ing it, appeared in person, saying, " Captain Joey, you have had 
as much as will do you good," not only did the captain feebly 
rub his knees and contemplate the fire without offering a word of 
protest, but the rest of the company murmured, "Ay, ay. Captain ! 
Miss Abbey's right; you be guided by Miss Abbey, Captain.'' 
Nor was Miss Abbey's vigilance in anywise abated by this submis- 
sion, but rather sharpened ; for, looking round on the deferential 
faces of her school, and descrying two other young persons in need 
of. admonition, she thus bestowed it: "Tom Tootle, it's time for 
a young fellow who's going to be married next month, to be at 
home and asleep. And you needn't nudge him, Mr. Jack Mullins, 
for I know your work begins early to-morrow, and I say the same 
to you. So come ! Good night, like good lads ! " Upon which 
the blushing Tootle looked to Mullins, and the blushing Mullins 
looked to Tootle, on the question who should rise first, and finally 
both rose together and went out on the broad grin, followed by 
Miss Abbey; in whose presence the company did not take the 
liberty of grinning likewise. 

In such an establishment, the white-aproned potboy, with his 
shirt-sleeves arranged in a tight roll on each bare shoulder, was 
a mere hint of the possibility of physical force, thrown out as a 
matter of state and form. Exactly at the closing hour, all the 
guests who were left, filed out in the best order; Miss Abbey 
standing at the half-door of the bar, to hold a ceremony of review 
and dismissal. All wished Miss Abbey good night, and Miss 
Abbey wished good night to all, except Riderhood. The sapient 
potboy, looking on ofiicially, then had the conviction borne in upon 
his soul, that the man was evermore outcast and excommunicated 
from the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters. 

"You Bob Ghbbery," said Miss Abbey to this potboy, "run 
round to Hexam's and tell his daughter Lizzie that I want to 
speak to her." 

With exemplary swiftness Bob Glibbery departed, and returned. 
Lizzie, following him, arrived as one of the two female domestics 
of the Fellowship-Porters arranged on the snug little table by the 
bar fire. Miss Potterson's supper of hot sausages and mashed pota- 
toes. 

" Come in and sit ye down, girl," said Miss Abbey. " Can you 
eat a bit ? " 

" No thank you, Miss. I have had my supper." 

"I have had mine too, I think," said Miss Abbey, pushing away 



62 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

the untasted dish, " and more than enough of it. I am put out, 
Lizzie." 

" I am very sorry for it. Miss." 

"Then why, in the name of Goodness," quoth Miss Abbey, 
sharply, "do you do it ? " 

" / do it, Miss ! " 

" There, there. Don't look astonished. I ought to have begun 
with a word of explanation, but it's my way to make short cuts 
at things. I always was a pepperer. You Bob Glibbery there, 
put the chain upon the door and get ye down to your supper." 

With an alacrity that seemed no less referable to the pepperer 
fact than to the supper fact, Bob obeyed, and his boots were heard 
descending towards the bed of the river. 

"Lizzie Hexam, Lizzie Hexam," then began Miss Potterson, 
"how often have I held out to you the opportunity of getting 
clear of your father, and doing well?" 

" Very often. Miss." 

" Very often 1 Yes ! And I might as well have spoken to the 
iron funnel of the strongest sea-going steamer that passes the 
Fellowship-Porters. " 

"No, Miss," Lizzie pleaded, "because that would not be thank- 
ful, and I am." 

"I vow and declare I am half ashamed of myself for taking 
such an interest in you," said Miss Abbey, pettishly, "for I don't 
believe I should do it if you were not good-looking. Why ain't 
you ugly ? " 

Lizzie merely answered this difficult question with an apolo- 
getic glance. 

" However, you ain't," resumed Miss Potterson, " so it's no use 
going into that. I must take you as I find you. Which indeed 
is what I've done. And you mean to say you are still obstinate ? " 

" Not obstinate. Miss, I hope." 

"Firm (I suppose you call it) then?" 

"Yes, Miss. Fixed like." 

"Never was an obstinate person yet, who would own to the 
word !" remarked Miss Potterson, rubbing her vexed nose : "I'm 
sure I would, if I was obstinate ; but I am a pepperer, which is 
different. Lizzie Hexam, Lizzie Hexam, think again. Do you 
know the worst of your father 1 " 

" Do I know the worst of father ! " she repeated, opening her 
eyes. 

" Do you know the suspicions to which your father makes him- 
self liable ? Do you know the suspicions that are actually about, 
against him 1 " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 63 

The consciousness of what he habitually did, oppressed the girl 
heavily, and she slowly cast down her eyes. 

" Say, Lizzie. Do you know ? " urged Miss Abbey. 

" Please to tell me what the suspicions are, Miss," she asked after 
a silence, with her eyes upon the ground. 

" It's not an easy thing to tell a daughter, but it must be told. 
It is thought by some, then, that your father helps to their death 
a few of those that he finds dead." 

The relief of hearing what she felt sure was a false suspicion, in 
place of the expected real and true one, so lightened Lizzie's breast 
for the moment, that Miss Abbey was amazed at her demeanour. 
She raised her eyes quickly, shook her head, and, in a kind of 
triumph, almost laughed. 

" They little know father who talk like that." 

(" She takes it," thought Miss Abbey, " very quietly. She takes 
it with extraordinary quietness ! ") 

"And perhaps," said Lizzie, as a recollection flashed upon her, 
" it is some one who has a grudge against father ; some one who 
has threatened father ! Is it Riderhood, Miss ? " 

"Well; yes it is." 

" Yes ! He was father's partner, and father broke with him, and 
now he revenges himself Father broke with him when I was by, 
and he was very angry at it. And besides. Miss Abbey ! — Will 
you never, without strong reason, let pass your lips what I am go- 
ing to say 1 " 

She bent forward to say it in a whisper. 

" I promise," said Miss Abbey. 

" It was on the night when the Harmon murder was found out, 
through father, just above bridge. And just below bridge, as we 
were sculling home, Riderhood crept out of the dark in his boat. 
And many and many times afterwards, when such great pains were 
taken to come to the bottom of the crime, and it never could be 
come near, I thought in my own thoughts, could Riderhood him- 
self have done the murder, and did he purposely let father find the 
body ? It seemed a'most wicked and- cruel to so much as think such 
a thing ; but now that he tries to throw it upon father, I go back 
to it as if it was a truth. Can it be a truth ? That was put into 
my mind by the dead ? " 

She asked this question, rather of the fire than of the hostess 
of the Fellowship-Porters, and looked round the little bar with 
troubled eyes. 

But, Miss Potterson, as a ready schoolmistress accustomed to 
bring her pupils to book, set the matter in a light that was essen- 
tially of this world. 



64 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"You poor deluded girl," she said, "don't you see that you 
can't open your mind to particular suspicions of one of the two, 
without opening your mind to general suspicions of the other? 
They had worked together. Their goings-on had been going on for 
some time. Even granting that it was as you have had in your 
thoughts, what the two had done together would come familiar to 
the mind of one." 

" You don't know father. Miss, when you talk like that. In- 
deed, indeed, you don't know father." 

"Lizzie, Lizzie," said Miss Potterson. "Leave him. You 
needn't break with him altogether, but leave him. Do well away 
from him ; not because of what I have told you to-night — we'll 
pass no judgment upon that, and we'll hope it may not be — but 
because of what I have urged on you before. No matter whether 
it's owing to your good looks or not, I like you and I want to serve 
you. Lizzie, come under my direction. Don't fling yourself away, 
my girl, but be persuaded into being respectable and happy." 

In the sound good feeling and good sense of her entreaty. Miss 
Abbey had softened into a soothing tone, and had even drawn her 
arm round the girl's waist. But, she only replied, " Thank you, 
thank you ! I can't. I won't. I must not think of it. The 
harder father is borne upon, the more he needs me to lean on." 

And then Miss Abbey, who, like all hard people when they do 
soften, felt that there was considerable compensation owing to her, 
underwent reaction and became frigid. 

"I have done what I can," she said, "and you must go your 
way. You make your bed, and you must lie on it. But tell your 
father one thing : he must not come here any more." 

" Oh, Miss, will you forbid him the house where I know he is 
safe?" 

"The Fellowships," returned Miss Abbey, "has itself to look 
to, as well as others. It has been hard work to establish order 
here, and make the Fellowships what it is, and it is daily and 
nightly hard work to keep it so. The Fellowships must not have 
a taint upon it that may give it a bad name. I forbid the house 
to Riderhood, and I forbid the house to Gaffer. I forbid both, 
equally. I find from Riderhood and you together, that there are 
suspicions against both men, and I'm not going to take upon myself 
to decide betwixt them. They are both tarred with a dirty brush, 
and I can't have the Fellowships tarred with the same brush. 
That's all /know." 

" Good night. Miss ! " said Lizzie Hexam, sorrowfully. 

" Hah ! — Good night ! " returned Miss Abbey with a shake of 
her head. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 65 

"Believe me, Miss Abbey, I am truly grateful all the same." 

" I can believe a good deal," returned the stately Abbey, " so I'll 
try to believe that too, Lizzie." 

No supper did Miss Potterson take that night, and only half her 
usual tumbler of hot Port Negus. And the female domestics — 
two robust sisters with staring black eyes, shining flat red faces, 
blunt noses, and strong black curls, like dolls — interchanged the 
sentiment that Missis had had her hair combed the wrong way by 
somebody. And the potboy afterwards remarked, that he hadn't 
been " so rattled to bed," since his late mother had systematically 
accelerated his retirement to rest with a poker. 

The chaining of the door behind her, as she went forth, dis- 
enchanted Lizzie Hexam of that first relief she had felt. The 
night was black and shrill, the riverside wilderness was melan- 
choly, and there was a sound of casting-out, in the rattling of the 
iron-links, and the grating of the bolts and staples under Miss 
Abbey's hand. As she came beneath the lowering sky, a sense of 
being involved in a murky shade of Murder dropped upon her ; 
and, as the tidal swell of the river broke at her feet without her 
seeing how it gathered, so, her thoughts startled her by rushing 
out of an unseen void and striking at her heart. 

Of her father's being groundlessly suspected, she felt sure. 
Sure. Sure. And yet, repeat the words inwardly as often as she 
would, the attempt to reason out and prove that she was sure, 
always came after it and failed. Riderhood had done the deed, 
and entrapped her father. Riderhood had not done the deed, but 
had resolved in his malice to turn against her father, the appear- 
ances that were ready to his hand to distort. Equally and swiftly 
upon either putting of the case, followed the frightful possibility 
that her father, being innocent, yet might come to be believed 
guilty. She had heard of people suff'ering death for bloodshed of 
which they were afterwards proved pure, and those ill-fated persons 
were not, first, in that dangerous wrong in which her father stood. 
Then at the best, the beginning of his being set apart, whispered 
against, and avoided, was a certain fact. It dated from that very 
night. And as the great black river with its dreary shores was 
soon lost to her view in the gloom, so, she stood on the river's 
brink unable to see into the vast blank misery of a life suspected, 
and fallen away from by good and bad, but knowing that it lay 
there dim before her, stretching away to the great ocean. Death. 

One thing only was clear to the girl's mind. Accustomed from 
her very babyhood promptly to do the thing that could be done — 
whether to keep out weather, to ward off" cold, to postpone hunger, 
or what not — she started out of her meditation, and ran home. 



66 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

The room was quiet, and the himp burnt on the table. In the 
bunk in the corner, her brother lay asleep. She bent over him, 
softly kissed him, and came to the table. 

" By the time of Miss Abbey's closing, and by the run of the 
tide, it must be one. Tide's running up. Father at Chiswick, 
wouldn't tliink of coming down till after the turn, and that's at 
half after four. I'll call Charley at six. I shall hear the church 
clock strike, as I sit here," 

Very quietly, she placed a chair before the scanty fire, and sat 
down in it, drawing her shawl about her. 

" Charley's hollow down by the flare is not there now. Poor 
Charley ! " 

The clock struck two, and the clock struck three, and the clock 
struck four, and she remained there, with a woman's patience and 
her own purpose. When the morning was well on between four 
and five, she slipped off her shoes (that her going about might not 
wake Charley), trimmed the fire sparingly, put water on to boil, 
and set the table for breakfast. Then she went up the ladder, 
lamp in hand, and came down again, and glided about and about, 
making a little bundle. Lastly, from her pocket, and from the 
chimney-piece, and from an inverted basin on the highest shelf, she 
brought halfpence, a few sixpences, fewer shillings, and fell to labo- 
riously and noiselessly counting them, and setting aside one little 
heap. She was still so engaged, when she was startled by : 

" Hal-loa ! " From her brother, sitting up in bed, 

" You made me jump, Charley." 

" Jump ! Didn't you make me jump, when I opened my eyes a 
moment ago, and saw you sitting there, like the ghost of a girl- 
miser, in the dead of the night," 

" It's not the dead of the night, Charley. It's nigh six in the 
morning," 

" Is it though ? But what are you up to, Liz ? " 

" Still telling your fortune, Charley." 

" It seems to be a precious small one, if that's it," said the boy. 
"What are you putting that little pile of money by itself for?" 

" For you, Charley." 

" What do you mean 1 " 

" Get out of bed, Charley, and get washed and dressed, and then 
I'll tell you." 

Her composed manner, and her low distinct voice, always had 
an influence over him. His head was soon in a basin of water, 
and out of it again, and staring at her through a storm of towelling. 

"I never," towelling at himself as if he were his bitterest 
enemy, " saw such a girl as you are. What is the move, Liz?" 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 67 

"Are you almost ready for breakfast, Charley?" 

" You can pour it out. Hal-loa ! I say ? And a bundle ? " 

"And a bundle, Charley." 

" You don't mean it's for me, too ? " 

"Yes, Charley; I do, indeed." 

More serious of face, and more slow of action, than he had been, 
the boy completed his dressing, and came and sat down at the 
little breakfast-table, with his eyes amazedly directed to her face. 

" You see, Charley dear, I have made up my mind that this is 
the right time for your going away from us. Over and above all 
the blessed change of by-and-bye, you'll be much happier, and do 
much better, even so soon as next month. Even so soon as next 
week." 

" How do you know I shall ? " 

" I don't quite know how, Charley, but I do." In spite of her 
unchanged manner of speaking, and her unchanged appearance of 
composure, she scarcely trusted herself to look at him, but kept 
her eyes employed on the cutting and buttering of his bread, and 
on the mixing of his tea, and other such little preparations. " You 
must leave father to me, Charley — I will do what I can with 
him — but you must go." 

"You don't stand upon ceremony, I think," grumbled the boy, 
throwing his bread and butter about, in an ill-humour. 

She made him no answer. 

"I tell you what," said the boy, then bursting out into an 
angry whimpering, " you're a selfish jade, and you think there's not 
enough for three of us, and you want to get rid of me." 

"If you believe so, Charley, — yes, then I believe too, that I 
am a selfish jade, and that I think there's not enough for three of 
us, and that I want to get rid of you." 

It was only when the boy rushed at her, and threw his arms 
round her neck, that she lost her self-restraint. But she lost it 
then, and wept over him. 

" Don't cry, don't ciy ! I am satisfied to go, Liz ; I am satisfied 
to go. I know you send me away for my good." 

" 0, Charley, Charley, Heaven above us knows I do ! " 

"Yes, yes. Don't mind what I said. Don't remember it. 
Kiss me." 

After a silence, slie loosed him to dry her eyes, and regain her 
strong quiet influence. 

" Now listen, Charley dear. We both know it must be done, 
and I alone know there is good reason for its being done at once. 
Go straight to the school, and say that you and I agreed upon it — 
that we can't overcome father's opposition — that father will never 



68 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

trouble them, but will never take you back. You are a credit to 
the school, and you will be a greater credit to it yet, and they will 
help you to get a living. Show what clothes you have brought, 
and what money, and say that I will send some more money. If I 
can get some in no other way, I will ask a little help of those two 
gentlemen who came here that night." 

"I say !" cried her brother, quickly. "Don't you have it of 
that chap that took hold of me by the chin ! Don't you have it 
of that Wrayburn one ! " 

Perhaps a slight additional tinge of red flashed up into her face 
and brow, as with a nod she laid a hand upon his lips to keep him 
silently attentive. 

" And above all things, mind this, Charley ! Be sure you always 
speak well of father. Be sure you always give father his full due. 
You can't deny that because father has no learning himself he is 
set against it in you ; but favour nothing else against him, and 
be sure you say — as you know — that your sister is devoted to 
him. And if you should ever happen to hear anything said against 
father that is new to you, it will not be true. Remember, Charley ! 
It will not be true." 

The boy looked at her with some doubt and surprise, but she 
went on again without heeding it. 

"Above all things remember! It will not be true. I have 
nothing more to say, Charley dear, except, be good, and get learn- 
ing, and only think of some things in the old life here, as if you 
had dreamed them in a dream last night. Good bye, my Darling ! " 

Though so young, she infused into these parting words a love 
that was far more like a mother's than a sister's, and before which 
the boy was quite bowed down. After holding her to his breast 
with a passionate cry, he took up his bundle and darted out at the 
door, with an arm across his eyes. 

The white face of the winter day came sluggishly on, veiled in 
a frosty mist ; and the shadowy ships in the river slowly changed 
to black substances ; and the sun, blood-red on the eastern marshes 
behind dark masts and yards, seemed filled with the ruins of a 
forest it had set on fire. Lizzie, looking for her father, saw him 
coming, and stood upon the causeway that he might see her. 

He had nothing with him but his boat, and came on apace. 
A knot of those amphibious human creatures who appear to have 
some mysterious power of extracting a subsistence out of tidal 
water by looking at it, were gathered together about the cause- 
way. As her father's boat grounded, they became contemplative 
of the mud, and dispersed themselves. She saw that the mute 
avoidance- had begun. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 69 

Gaffer saw it, too, in so far that he was moved when he set foot 
on shore, to stare around him. But, he promptly set to work to 
haul up his boat, and make her fast, and take the sculls and rudder 
and rope out of her. Carrying these, with Lizzie's aid, he passed 
up to his dwelling. 

" Sit close to the fire, father, dear, while I cook your breakfast. 
It's all ready for cooking, and only been waiting for you. You 
must be frozen." 

" Well, Lizzie, I ain't of a glow ; that's certain. And my hands 
seemed nailed through to the sculls. See how dead they are ! " 
Something suggestive in their colour, and perhaps in her face, 
struck him as he held them up ; he turned his shoulder and held 
them down to the fire. 

" You were not out in the perishing night, I hope, father?" 

" No, my dear. Lay aboard a barge, by a blazing coal-fire. — 
Where's that boy ? " 

"There's a drop of brandy for your tea, father, if you'll put it 
in while I turn this bit of meat. If the river was to get frozen, 
there would be a deal of distress ; wouldn't there, father ? " 

"Ah ! there's always enough of that," said Gaffer, dropping the 
liquor into his cup from a squat black bottle, and dropping it 
slowly that it might seem more; "distress is for ever a going 
about like sut in the air. — Ain't that boy up yet ? " 

" The meat's ready now, father. Eat it while it's hot and com- 
fortable. After you have finished, we'll turn round to the fire 
and talk." 

But, he perceived that he was evaded, and, having thrown a 
hasty angry glance towards the bunk, plucked at a corner of her 
apron and asked : 

"What's gone with that boy?" 

"Father, if you'll begin your breakfast, I'll sit by and tell you." 

He looked at her, stirred his tea and took two or three gulps, 
then cut at his piece of hot steak with his case-knife, and said, 
eating : 

" Now then. What's gone with that boy 1 " 

"Don't be angry, dear. It seems, father, that he has quite a 
gift of learning." 

" Unnat'ral young beggar ! " said the parent, shaking his knife 
in the air. 

" — And that having this gift, and not being equally good at 
other things, he has made shift to get some schooling." 

" Unnat'ral young beggar ! " said the parent again, with his 
former action. 

" — And that knowing you have nothing to spare, father, and 



70 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

not wishing to be a burden on you, he gradually made up his mind 
to go seek his fortune out of learning. He went away this morn- 
ing, father, and he cried very much at going, and he hoped you 
would forgive him." 

" Let him never come anigh me to ask me my forgiveness," said 
the father, again emphasising his words with the knife. "Let 
him never come within sight of my eyes, nor yet within reach of 
my arm. His own father ain't good enough for him. He's dis- 
owned his own father. His own father, therefore, disowns him for 
ever and ever, as a unnat'ral young beggar." 

He had pushed away his plate. With the natural need of a 
strong rough man in anger, to do something forcible, he now 
clutched his knife overhand and struck downward with it at the 
end of every succeeding sentence. As he would have struck with 
his own clenched fist if there had chanced to be nothing in it. 

" He's welcome to go. He's more welcome to go than to stay. 
But let him never come back. Let him never put his head inside 
that door. And let you never speak a word more in his favour, 
or you'll disown your own father, likewise, and what your father 
says of him he'll have to come to say of you. Now I see why 
them men yonder held aloof from me. They says to one another, 
' Here comes the man as ain't good enough for his own son ! ' 

Lizzie !" 

But, she stopped him with a cry. Looking at her he saw her, 
with a face quite strange to him, shrinking back against the wall, 
with her hands before her eyes. 

" Father, don't ! I can't bear to see you striking with it. Put 
it down ! " 

He looked at the knife ; but in his astonishment he still held it. 
" Father, it's too horrible. put it down, put it down ! " 
Confounded by her appearance and exclamation, he tossed it 
away, and stood up with his open hands held out before him- 

" What's come to you, Liz ? Can you think I would strike at 
you with a knife 1 " 

" No, father, no ; you would never hurt me." 
"What should I hurt?" 

"Nothing, dear father. On my knees, I am certain, in my 
heart and soul I am certain, nothing ! But it was too dreadful 

to bear ; for it looked " her hands covering her face again, 

"0 it looked " 

"What did it look like?" 

The recollection of his murderous figure, combining with her 
trial of last night, and her trial of the morning, caused her to drop 
at his feet, without having answered. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 71 

He had never seen her so before. He raised her with the 
utmost tenderness, calling her the best of daughters, and " my poor 
pretty creetur," and laid her head upon his knee, and tried to re- 
store her. But failing, he laid her head gently down again, got 
a pillow and placed it under her dark hair, and sought on the table 
for a spoonful of brandy. There being none left, he hurriedly 
caught up the empty bottle, and ran out at the door. 

He returned as hurriedly as he had gone, with the bottle still 
empty. He kneeled down by her, took her head on his arm, and 
moistened her lips with a little water into which he had dipped his 
fingers : saying, fiercely, as he looked around, now over this shoul- 
der, now over that : 

" Have we got a pest in the house ? Is there summ'at deadly 
sticking to my clothes ? What's let loose upon us 1 Who loosed 
it?" 



CHAPTER VII. 

MR. WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF. 

Silas Wegg, being on his road to the Roman Empire, ap- 
proaches it by way of Clerkenwell. The time is early in the 
evening ; the weather moist and raw. Mr. Wegg finds leisure to 
make a little circuit, by reason that he folds his screen early, now 
that he combines another source of income with it, and also that 
he feels it due to himself to be anxiously expected at the Bower. 
" Boffin will get all the eagerer for waiting a bit," says Silas, screw- 
ing up, as he stumps along, first his right eye, and then his left. 
Which is something superfluous in him, for Nature has already 
screwed both pretty tight. 

"If I get on with him as I expect to get on," Silas pursues, 
stumping and meditating, "it wouldn't become me to leave it 
here. It wouldn't be respectable." Animated by this reflection, 
he stumps faster, and looks a long way before him, as a man with 
an ambitious project in abeyance often will do. 

Aware of a working-jeweller population taking sanctuary about 
the church in Clerkenwell, Mr. Wegg is conscious of an interest in, 
and a respect for, the neighbourhood. But his sensations in this 
regard halt as to their strict morality, as he halts in his gait ; for 
they suggest the deliglits of a coat of invisibility in which to walk 
off safely with the precious stones and watch-cases, but stop short 
of any compunction for the people who would lose the same. 

Not, however, towards the "shops" where cunning artificers 



72 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

work in pearls and diamonds and gold and silver, making their 
hands so rich, that the enriched water in which they wash them 
is bought for the refiners; — not towards these does Mr. Wegg 
stump, but towards the poorer shops of small retail traders in 
commodities to eat and drink and keep folks warm, and of Italian 
frame-makers, and of barbers, and of brokers, and of dealers in dogs 
and singing-birds. From these, in a narrow and a dirty street 
devoted to such callings, Mr. Wegg selects one dark shop-window 
with a tallow candle dimly burning in it, surrounded by a muddle 
of objects, vaguely resembling pieces of leather and dry stick, but 
among which nothing is resolvable into anything distinct, save the 
candle itself in its old tin candlestick, and two preserved frogs 
fighting a small-sword duel. Stumping with fresh vigour, he goes 
in at the dark greasy entry, pushes a little greasy dark reluctant 
side-door, and follows the door into the little dark greasy shop. It 
is so dark that nothing can be made out in it, over a little counter, 
but another tallow candle in another old tin candlestick, close to 
the face of a man stooping low in a chair. 

Mr. Wegg nods to the face, " Good evening." 

The face looking up is a sallow face with weak eyes, surmounted 
by a tangle of reddish -dusty hair. The owner of the face has no 
cravat on, and has opened his tumbled shirt-collar to work with 
the more ease. For the same reason he has no coat on : only a 
loose waistcoat over his yellow linen. His eyes are like the over- 
tried eyes of an engraver, but he is not that ; his expression and 
stoop are like those of a shoemaker, but he is not that. 

" Good evening, Mr. Venus. Don't you remember ? " 

With slowly dawning remembrance, Mr. Venus rises, and holds 
his candle over the little counter, and holds it down towards the 
legs, natural and artificial, of Mr. Wegg. 

"To be mre I " he says, then. " How do you do ? " 

"Wegg, you know," that gentleman explains. 

"Yes, yes," says the other. "Hospital amputation?" 

" Just so," says Mr. Wegg. 

" Yes, yes," quoth Venus. " How do you do 1 Sit down by the 
fire, and warm your — your other one." 

The little counter being so short a counter that it leaves the 
fireplace, which would have been behind it if it had been longer, 
accessible, Mr. Wegg sits down on a box in front of the fire, and 
inhales a warm and comfortable smell which is not the smell of 
the shop. " For that," Mr. Wegg inwardly decides, as he takes a 
corrective sniff" or two, " is musty, leathery, feathery, cellary, gluey, 
gummy, and," with another sniff, "as it might be, strong of old 
pairs of bellows." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 73 

"My tea is drawing/ and my muffin is on the hob, Mr. Wegg; 
will you partake ? " 

It being one of Mr. Wegg's guiding rules in life always to 
partake, he says he will. But, the little shop is so excessively 
dark, is stuck so full of black shelves and brackets and nooks and 
corners, that he sees Mr. Venus's cup and saucer only because it is 
close under the candle, and does not see from what mysterious 
recess Mr. Venus produces another for himself, until it is under 
his nose. Concurrently, Wegg perceives a pretty little dead bird 
lying on the counter, with its head drooping on one side against 
the rim of Mr. Venus's saucer, and a long stiff wire piercing its 
breast. As if it were Cock Robin, the hero of the ballad, and 
Mr. Venus were the sparrow with his bow and arrow, and Mr. 
Wegg were the fly with his little eye. 

Mr. Venus dives, and produces another muffin, yet untoasted; 
taking the arrow out of the breast of Cock Robin, he proceeds to 
toast it on the end of that cruel instrument. When it is brown, 
he dives again and produces butter, with which he completes his 
work. 

Mr. Wegg, as an artful man who is sure of his supper by-and-bye, 
presses muffin on his host to soothe him into a compliant state of 
mind, or, as one might say, to grease his works. As the muffins 
disappear, little by little, the black shelves and nooks and corners 
begin to appear, and Mr. Wegg gradually acquires an imperfect 
notion that over against him on the chimney-piece is a Hindoo 
baby in a bottle, curved up with his big head tucked under him, 
as though he would instantly throw a summersault if the bottle 
were large enough. 

When he deems Mr. Venus's wheels sufficiently lubricated, 
Mr. Wegg approaches his object by asking, as he lightly taps his 
hands together, to express an undesigning frame of mind : 

"And how have I been going on, this long time, Mr. Venus?" 

" Very bad," says Mr. Venus, uncompromisingly. 

"What? Am I still at home?" asks Wegg, with an air of 
surprise. 

"Always at home." 

This would seem to be secretly agreeable to Wegg, but he veils 
his feelings, and observes, " Strange. To what do you attribute it ? " 

"I don't know," replies Venus, who is a haggard melancholy 
man, speaking in a weak voice of querulous complaint, " to what 
to attribute it, Mr. Wegg. I can't work you into a miscellaneous 
one, nohow. Do what I will, you can't be got to fit. Anybody 
with a passable knowledge would pick you out at a look, and say — 
' No go ! Don't match ! ' " 



74 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Well, but hang it, Mr. Venus," Wegg Expostulates with some 
little irritation, "that can't be personal and peculiar in me. It 
must often happen with miscellaneous ones." 

" With ribs (I grant you) always. But not else. When I pre- 
pare a miscellaneous one, I know beforehand that I can't keep to 
nature, and be miscellaneous with ribs, because every man has his 
own ribs, and no other man's will go with them ; but elseways I 
can be miscellaneous. I have just sent home a Beauty — a perfect 
Beauty — to a school of art. One leg Belgian, one leg English, 
and the pickings of eight other people in it. Talk of not being 
qualified to be miscellaneous ! By rights you ought to be, Mr. 
Wegg." 

Silas looks as hard at his one leg as he can in the dim light, and 
after a pause sulkily opines " that it must be the fault of the other 
people. Or how do you mean to say it comes about ? " he de- 
mands impatiently. 

" I don't know how it comes about. Stand up a minute. Hold 
the light." Mr. Venus takes from a corner by his chair, the bones 
of a leg and foot, beautifully pure, and put together with exquisite 
neatness. These he compares with Mr. Wegg's leg ; that gentle- 
man looking on, as if he were being measured for a riding-boot. 
" No, I don't know how it is, but so it is. You have got a twist 
in that bone, to the best of my belief. / never saw the likes of 
you." 

Mr. Wegg having looked distrustfully at his own limb, and 
suspiciously at the pattern with which it has been compared, makes 
the point : 

"I'll bet a pound that ain't an English one ! " 

" An easy wager, when we run so much into foreign ! No, it 
belongs to that French gentleman." 

As he nods towards a point of darkness behind Mr. Wegg, the 
latter, with a slight start, looks round for " that French gentleman," 
whom he at length descries to be represented (in a very workman- 
like manner) by his ribs only, standing on a shelf in another 
corner, like a piece of armour or a pair of stays. 

" Oh ! " says Mr. Wegg, with a sort of sense of being introduced ; 
" I dare say you were all right enough in your own country, but I 
hope no objections will be taken to my saying that the Frenchman 
was never yet born as I should wish to match." 

At this moment the greasy door is violently pushed inward, and 
a boy follows it, who says, after having let it slam : 

"Come for the stuffed canary." 

" It's three and ninepence," returns Venus ; " have you got the 
money 1 " 



76 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

The boy produces four shillings. Mr. Venus, always in exceed- 
ingly low spirits, and making whimpering sounds, peers about for 
the stuffed canary. On his taking the candle to assist his search, 
Mr. Wegg observes that he has a convenient little shelf near his 
knees, exclusively appropriated to skeleton hands, which have very 
much the appearance of wanting to lay hold of him. From these 
Mr. Venus rescues the canary in a glass case, and shows it to the 
boy. 

" There ! " he whimpers. " There's animation ! On a twig, 
making up his mind to hop ! Take care of him ; he's a lovely speci- 
men. — And three is four." 

The boy gathers up his change and has pulled the door open by 
a leather strap nailed to it for the purpose, when Venus cries 
out : 

" Stop him ! Come back, you young villain ! You've got a 
tooth among them halfpence." 

"How was I to know I'd got it? You giv it me. I don't 
w^aut none of your teeth, I've got enough of my own." So the boy 
pipes, as he selects it from his change, and throws it on the 
counter. 

" Don't sauce 7ne, in the wicious pride of your youth," Mr. 
Venus retorts pathetically. " Don't hit me because you see I'm 
down. I'm low enough without that. It dropped into the till, I 
suppose. They drop into everything. There was two in the 
coffee-pot at breakfast-time. Molars." 

"Very well, then," argues the boy, " what do you call names 
for?" 

To which Mr. Venus only replies, shaking his shock of dusty 
hair, and winking his weak eyes, " Don't sauce me, in the wicious 
pride of your youth ; don't hit me because you see I'm down. 
You've no idea how small you'd come out, if I had the articulating 
of you." 

This consideration seems to have its effect upon the boy, for he 
goes out grumbling. 

" Oh dear me, dear me ! " sighs Mr. Venus, heavily, snuffing the 
candle, " the world that appeared so flowery has ceased to blow ! 
You're casting your eye round the shop, Mr. Wegg. Let me show 
you a light. My working bench. My young man's bench. A 
Wice. Tools. Bones, warious. Skulls, warious. Preserved In- 
dian baby. African ditto. Bottled preparations, warious. Every- 
thing within reach of your hand, in good preservation. The mouldy 
ones a-top. What's in those hampers over them again, I don't 
quite remember. Say, human warious. Cats. Articulated Eng- 
lish baby. Dogs. Ducks. Glass eyes, warious. Mummied bird. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 77 

Dried cuticle, warious. Oh dear me ! That's the general pano- 
ramic view." 

Having so held and waved the candle as that all these hetero- 
geneous objects seemed to come forward obediently when they 
were named, and then retire again, Mr. Venus despondently repeats, 
" Oh dear me, dear me ! " resumes his seat, and with drooping 
despondency upon him, falls to pouring himself out more tea. 

"Where am I ? " asks Mr. Wegg. 

" You're somewhere in the back shop across the yard, sir ; and 
speaking quite candidly, I wish I'd never bought you of the Hos- 
pital Porter." 

" Now, look here, what did you give for me ? " 

" Well," replies Venus, blowing his tea : his head and face peer- 
ing out of the darkness, over the smoke of it, as if he were mod- 
ernising the old original rise in his family : " you were one of a 
warious lot, and I don't know." 

Silas puts his point in the improved form of " What will you 
take for me 1 " 

"Well," replies Venus, still blowing his tea, " I'm not prepared, 
at a moment's notice, to tell you, Mr. Wegg," 

" Come ! According to your own account, I'm not worth much," 
Wegg reasons persuasively. 

" Not for miscellaneous working in, I grant you, Mr. Wegg ; 

but you might turn out valuable yet, as a " here Mr. Venus 

takes a gulp of tea, so hot that it makes him choke, and sets his 
Weak eyes watering: "as a Monstrosity, if you'll excuse me." 

Repressing an indignant look, indicative of anything but a 
disposition to excuse him, Silas pursues his point. 

" I think you know me, Mr. Venus, and I think you know I 
never bargain." 

Mr. Venus takes gulps of hot tea, shutting his eyes at every 
gulp, and opening them again in a spasmodic manner ; but does 
not commit himself to assent. 

" I have a prospect of getting on in life and elevating myself by 
my own independent exertions," says Wegg, feelingly, "and I 
shouldn't like — I tell you openly I should not like — under such 
circumstances, to be what I may call dispersed, a part of me here, 
and a part of me there, but should wish to collect myself like a 
genteel person." 

" It's a prospect at present, is it, Mr. Wegg 1 Then you haven't 
got the money for a deal about you ? Then I'll tell you what I'll 
do with you ; I'll hold you over. I am a man of my word, and 
you needn't be afraid of my disposing of you. I'll hold you over. 
That's a promise. Oh dear me, dear me ! " 



78 OUR ]\IUTUAL FRIEND. 

Fain to accept his promise, and wishing to propitiate him, Mr. 
Wegg looks on as he sighs and pours himself out more tea, and 
then says, trying to get a sympathetic tone into his voice : 

"You seem very low, Mr. Venus. Is business bad?" 

"Never was so good." 

" Is your hand out at all ? " 

" Never was so well in. Mr. Wegg, I'm not only first in the 
trade, but I'm the trade. You may go and buy a skeleton at the 
West End if you like, and pay the West End price, but it'll be 
my putting together. I've as much to do as I can possibly do, 
with the assistance of my young man, and I take a pride and a 
pleasure in it." 

Mr. Venus thus delivers himself, his right hand extended, his 
smoking saucer in his left hand, protesting as though he were go- 
ing to burst into a flood of tears. 

"That ain't a state of things to make you low, Mr. Venus." 

" Mr. Wegg, I know it ain't. Mr. Wegg, not to name myself 
as a workman without an equal, I've gone on improving myself 
in my knowledge of Anatomy, till both by sight and by name I'm 
perfect. Mr. Wegg, if you was brought here loose in a bag to be 
articulated, I'd name your smallest bones blindfold equally with 
your largest, as fast as I could pick 'em out, and I'd sort 'em all, 
and sort your wertebrse, in a manner that would equally surprise 
and charm you." 

"Well," remarks Silas (though not quite so readily as last time), 
" that ain't a state of things to be low about. — Not for you to be 
low about, leastways." 

" Mr. Wegg, I know it ain't ; Mr. Wegg, I know it ain't. But 
it's the heart that lowers me, it is the heart ! Be so good as take 
and read that card out loud." 

Silas receives one from his hand, which Venus takes from a 
wonderful litter in a drawer, and putting on his spectacles, reads : 

"'Mr. Venus,'" 

"Yes. Goon." 

" ' Preserver of Animals and Birds,' " 

"Yes. Goon." 

" ' Articulator of human bones.' " r 

" That's it," with a groan. " That's it ! Mr. Wegg, I'm thirty- 
two, and a bachelor. Mr. Wegg, I love her. Mr. Wegg, she is 
worthy of being loved by a Potentate ! " Here Silas is rather 
alarmed by Mr. Venus springing to his feet in the hurry of his 
spirits, and haggardly confronting him with his hand on his coat 
collar ; but Mr. Venus, begging pardon, sits down again, saying, 
with the calmness of despair, "She objects to the business." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 79 

" Does she know the profits of it ? " 

" She knows the profits of it, but she don't appreciate the art of 
it, and she objects to it. 'I do not wish,' she writes in her own 
handwriting, ' to regard myself, nor yet to be regarded, in that bony 
light.' " 

Mr. Venus pours himself out more tea, with a look and in an 
attitude of the deepest desolation. 

"And so a man climbs to the top of the tree, Mr. Wegg, only 
to see that there's no look-out when he's up there ! I sit here of 
a night surrounded by the lovely trophies of my art, and what 
have they done for me 1 Ruined me. Brought me to the pass of 
being informed that ' she does not wish to regard herself, nor yet 
to be regarded, in that bony light ! ' " Having repeated the fatal 
expressions, Mr. Venus drinks more tea by gulps, and offers an 
explanation of his doing so. 

" It lowers me. When I'm equally lowered all over, lethargy 
sets in. By sticking to it till one or two in the morning, I get 
oblivion. Don't let me detain you, Mr. Wegg. I'm not company 
for any one." 

" It is not on that account," says Silas, rising, "but because I've 
got an appointment. It's time I was at Harmon's." 

" Eh 1 " said Mr. Venus. " Harmon's, up Battle Bridge way ? " 

Mr. Wegg admits that he is bound for that port. 

" You ought to be in a good thing, if you've worked yourself in 
there. There's lots of money going there." 

"To think," says Silas, "that you should catch it up so quick, 
and know about it. Wonderful ! " 

" Not at all, Mr. Wegg. The old gentleman wanted to know 
the nature and worth of everything that was found in the dust ; 
and many's the bone, and feather, and what not, that he's brought 
to me." 

" Really, now ! " 

" Yes. (Oh dear me, dear me !) And he's buried quite in this 
neighbourhood, you know. Over yonder." 

Mr. Wegg does not know, but he makes as if he did, by respon- 
sively nodding his head. He also follows with his eyes, the toss 
of Venus's head : as if to seek a direction to over yonder. 

" I took an interest in that discovery in the river," says Venus. 
"(She hadn't written her cutting refusal at that time.) I've got 
up there never mind, though." 

He had raised the candle at arm's length towards one of the 
dark shelves, and Mr. Wegg had turned to look, when he broke oft". 

"The old gentleman was well known all round here. There 
used to be stories about his having hidden all kinds of property in 



80 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

those dust mounds. I suppose there was nothing in 'em. Prob- 
ably you know, Mr. Wegg ? " 

"Nothing in 'em," says Wegg, who has never heard a word of 
this before. 

"Don't let me detain you. Good night ! " 

The unfortunate Mr. Venus gives him a shake of the hand with 
a shake of his own head, and drooping down in his chair, proceeds 
to pour himself out more tea. 

Mr. Wegg, looking back over his shoulder as he pulls the door 
open by the strap, notices that the movement so shakes the crazy 
shop, and so shakes a momentary flare out of the candle, as that 
the babies — Hindoo, African, and British — the "human wari- 
ous," the French gentleman, the green glass-eyed cats, the dogs, 
the ducks, and all the rest of the collection, show for an instant as 
if paralytically animated ; while even poor little Cock Robin at 
Mr. Venus's elbow turns over on his innocent side. Next moment, 
Mr. Wegg is stumping under the gaslights and through the mud. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MR. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION. 

Whosoever had gone out of Fleet Street into the Temple at 
the date of this history, and had wandered disconsolate about the 
Temple until he stumbled on a dismal churchyard, and had looked 
up at the dismal windows commanding that churchyard until at 
the most dismal window of them all he saw a dismal boy, would 
in him have beheld, at one grand comprehensive swoop of the eye, 
the managing clerk, junior clerk, common-law clerk, conveyancing 
clerk, chancery clerk, every refinement and department of clerk, 
of Mr. Mortimer Lightwood, erewhile called in the newspapers 
eminent solicitor. 

Mr. Boffin having been several times in communication with this 
clerkly essence, both on its own ground and at the Bower, had no 
difficulty in identifying it when he saw it up in its dusty eyrie. 
To the second floor on which the window was situated, he ascended, 
much preoccupied in mind by the uncertainties besetting the 
Roman Empire, and much regretting the death of the amiable 
Pertinax : who only last night had left the Imperial aff'airs in a 
state of great confusion, by falling a victim to the fury of the 
praetorian guards. 

" Morning, morning, morning ! " said Mr. Boffin, with a wave 
of his hand, as the office door was opened by the dismal boy, whose 
appropriate name was Blight. " Governor in ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 81 

" Mr. Lightwood gave you an appointment, sir, I think ? " 

" I don't want him to give it, you know," returned Mr. Boffin ; 
''I'll pay my way, my boy." 

"No doubt, sir. Would you walk in? Mr. Lightwood ain't 
in at the present moment, but I expect him back very shortly. 
Would you take a seat in Mr. Lightwood's room, sir, while I look 
over our Appointment Book ? " Young Blight made a great show 
of fetching froin his desk a long thin manuscript volume with a 
brown paper cover, and running his finger down the day's appoint- 
ments, murmuring, " Mr. Aggs, Mr. Baggs, Mr. Caggs, Mr. Daggs, 
Mr. Faggs, Mr. Gaggs, Mr. Boffin. Yes, sir, quite right. You 
are a little before your time, sir. Mr. Lightwood will be in 
directly." 

" I'm not in a hurry," said Mr. Boffin. 

" Thank you, sir. I'll take the opportunity, if you please, of 
entering your name in our Callers' Book for the day." Young 
Blight made another great show of changing the volume, taking 
up a pen, sucking it, dipping it, and running over previous entries 
before he wrote. As, "Mr. Alley, Mr. Bailey, Mr. Galley, Mr. 
Dalley, Mr. Falley, Mr. Galley, Mr. Halley, Mr. Lalley, Mr. 
Malley. And Mr. Boffin." 

"Strict system here; eh, my lad?" said Mr. Boffin, as he was 
booked. 

" Yes, sir," returned the boy. " I couldn't get on without it." 

By which he probably meant that his mind would have been 
shattered to pieces without this fiction of an occupation. Wear- 
ing in his solitary confinement no fetters that he could polish, and 
being provided with no drinking-cup that he could carve, he had 
fallen on the device of ringing alphabetical changes into the two 
volumes in question, or of entering vast numbers of persons out of 
the Directory as transacting business with Mr. Lightwood. It 
was the more necessary for his spirits, because, being of a sensitive 
temperament, he was apt to consider it personally disgraceful to 
himself that his master had no clients. 

" How long have you been in the law, now ? " asked Mr. Boffin, 
with a pounce, in his usual inquisitive way. 

" I've been in the law, now, sir, about three years." 

" Must have been as good as born in it ! " said Mr. Boffin, with 
admiration. " Do you like it ? " 

" I don't mind it much," returned young Blight, heaving a sigh, 
as if its bitterness were past. 

" What wages do you get ? " 

"Half what I could wish," replied young Blight. 

" What's the whole that you could wish 1 " 



82 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Fifteen shillings a week," said the boy. 

" About how long might it take you now, at an average rate of 
going, to be a Judge ? " asked Mr. Boffin, after surveying his small 
stature in silence. 

The boy answered that he had not yet quite worked out that 
little calculation. 

" I suppose there's nothing to prevent your going in for it ? " 
said Mr. Boffin. 

The boy virtually replied that as he had the honour to be a 
Briton who never, never, never, there was nothing to prevent his 
going in for it. Yet he seemed inclined to suspect that there 
might be something to prevent his coming out with it. 

"Would a couple of pound help you up at all?" asked Mr. 
Boffin. 

On this head, young Blight had no doubt whatever, so Mr. 
Boffin made him a present of that sum of money, and thanked him 
for his attention to his (Mr. Boffin's) affairs, which, he added, were 
now, he believed, as good as settled. 

Then Mr. Boffin, with his stick at his ear, like a Familiar Spirit 
explaining the office to him, sat staring at a little bookcase of Law 
Practice and Law Reports, and at a window, and at an empty blue 
bag, and at a stick of sealing-wax, and a pen, and a box of wafers, 
and an apple, and a writing-pad — all very dusty — and at a num- 
ber of inky smears and blots, and at an imperfectly-disguised gun- 
case pretending to be something legal, and at an iron box labelled 
Haemon Estate, until Mr. Lightwood appeared. 

Mr. Lightwood explained that he came from the proctor's, with 
whom he had been engaged in transacting Mr. Boffin's affairs. 

" And they seem to have taken a deal out of you ! " said Mr. 
Boffin, with commiseration. 

Mr. Lightwood, without explaining that his weariness was chronic, 
proceeded with his exposition that, all forms of law having been 
at length complied with, will of Harmon deceased having been 
proved, death of Harmon next inheriting having been proved, &c., 
and so forth. Court of Chancery having been moved, &c., and so 
forth, he, Mr. Lightwood, had now the great gratification, honour, 
and happiness, again &c. and so forth, of congratulating Mr. Boffin on 
coming into possession, as residuary legatee, of upwards of one 
hundred thousand pounds, standing in the books of the Governor 
and Company of the Bank of England, again &c. and so forth. 

" And what is particularly eligible in the property, Mr. Boffin, 
is, that it involves no trouble. There are no estates to manage, no 
rents to return so much per cent, upon in bad times (which is an 
extremely dear way of getting your name into the newspapers), no 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 83 

voters to become parboiled in hot water with, no agents to take 
the cream off the milk before it comes to table. You could put 
the whole in a cash-box to-morrow morning, and take it with you 
to — say, to the Rocky Mountains. Inasmuch as every man," 
concluded Mr. Lightwood, with an indolent smile, " appears to be 
under a fatal spell which obliges him, sooner or later, to mention 
the Rocky Mountains in a tone of extreme familiarity to some 
other man, I hope you'll excuse my pressing you into the service 
of that gigantic range of geographical bores." 

Without following this last remark very closely, Mr. Boffin cast 
his perplexed gaze first at the ceiling, and then at the carpet. 

"Well," he remarked, " I don't know what to say about it, I 
am sure. I was a'most as well as I was. It's a great lot to take 
care of." 

" My dear Mr. Boffin, then dmiH take care of it ! " 

" Eh ? " said that gentleman. 

" Speaking now," returned Mortimer, " with the irresponsible 
imbecility of a private individual, and not with the profundity of a 
professional adviser, I should say that if the circumstance of its 
being too much, weighs upon your mind, you have the haven of 
consolation open to you that you can easily make it less. And if 
you should be apprehensive of the trouble of doing so, there is the 
further haven of consolation that any number of people will take 
the trouble off your hands." 

"Well! I don't quite see it," retorted Mr. Boffin, still per- 
plexed. " That's not satisfactory, you know, what you're a saying." 

"Is Anything satisfactory, Mr. Boffin?" asked Mortimer, rais- 
ing his eyebrows. 

" I used to find it so," answered Mr. Boffin, with a wistful look. 
" While I was foreman at the Bower — afore it ivas the Bower — 
I considered the business very satisfactory. The old man was a 
awful Tartar (saying it, I'm sure, without disrespect to his mem- 
ory), but the business was a pleasant one to look after, from before 
daylight to past daiK. It's a'most a pity," said Mr. Boffin, rub- 
bing his ear, " that he ever went and made so much money. It 
would have been better for him if he hadn't so given himself up 
to it. You may depend upon it," making the discovery all of a 
sudden, " that he found it a great lot to take care of ! " 

Mr. Lightwood coughed, not convinced. 

"And speaking of satisfactory," pursued Mr. Boffin, "why. Lord 
save us ! when we come to take it to pieces, bit by bit, where's 
the satisfactoriness of the money as yet 1 When the old man does 
right the poor boy after all, the poor boy gets no good of it. He 
gets made away with, at the moment when he's lifting (as one may 



84 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

say) the cup and sarser to his lips. Mr. Lightwood, I will now 
name to you, that on behalf of the poor dear boy, me and Mrs. 
Boffin have stood out against the old man times out of number, till 
he has called us every name he could lay his tongue to. I have 
seen him, after Mrs. Boffin has given him her mind respecting the 
claims of the nat'ral affections, catch off Mrs. Boffin's bonnet (she 
wore, in general, a black straw, perched as a matter of convenience 
on the top of her head), and send it spinning across the yard. I 
have indeed. And once, when he did this in a manner that 
amounted to personal, I should have given him a rattler for him- 
self, if Mrs. Boffin hadn't thrown herself betwixt us, and re- 
ceived flush on the temple. Which dropped her, Mr. Lightwood. 
Dropped her." 

Mr. Lightwood murmured "Equal honour — Mrs. Boffin's head 
and heart." 

"You understand; I name this," pursued Mr. Boffin, "to show 
you, now the affairs are wound up, that me and Mrs. Boffin have 
ever stood, as we were in Christian honour bound, the children's 
friend. Me and Mrs. Boffin stood the poor girl's friend ; me and 
Mrs. Boffin stood the poor boy's friend ; me and Mrs. Boffin up 
and faced the old man when we momently expected to be turned 
out for our pains. As to Mrs. Boffin," said Mr. Boffin, lowering 
his voice, " she mightn't wish it mentioned now she's Fashionable, 
but she went so far as to tell him, in my presence, he was a flinty- 
hearted rascal." 

Mr. Lightwood murmured " Vigorous Saxon spirit — IMrs. Boffin's 
ancestors — - bowmen — Agincourt and Cressy." 

" The last time me and Mrs. Boffin saw the poor boy," said Mr. 
Boffin, w\arming (as fat usually does), with a tendency to melt, " he 
was a child of seven year old. For when he come back to make 
intercession for his sister, me and Mrs. Boffin were away overlook- 
ing a country contract which was to be sifted before carted, and he 
was come and gone in a single hour. I say he was a child of seven 
year old. He was going away, all alone and forlorn, to that 
foreign school, and he come into our place, situate up the yard of 
the present Bower, to have a warm at our fire. There was his 
little scanty travelling clothes upon him. There was his little 
scanty box outside in the shivering wind, which I was going to 
carry for him down to the steamboat, as the old man wouldn't 
hear of allowing a sixpence coach-money. Mrs. Boffin, then quite 
a young woman and a pictur of a full-blown rose, stands him by 
her, kneels down at the fire, warms her two open hands, and falls 
to rubbing his cheeks ; but seeing the tears come into the child's 
eyes, the tears come fast into her own, and she holds him round 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 85 

the neck, like as if she was protecting him, and cries to me, ' I'd 
give the wide wide world, I would, to run away with him ! ' I 
don't say but what it cut me, and but what it at the same time 
heightened my feelings of admiration for Mrs. Boffin. The poor 
child clings to her for awhile, as she clings to him, and then, when 
the old man calls, he says ' I must go ! God bless you ! ' and for a 
moment rests his heart against her bosom, and looks up at both of 
us, as if it was in pain — in agony. Such a look ! I went aboard 
with him (I gave him first what little treat I thought he'd like), 
and I left him when he had fallen asleep in his berth, and I came 
back to Mrs. Boffin. But tell her what I would of how I had 
left him, it all went for nothing, for, according to her thoughts, he 
never changed that look that he had looked up at us two. But it 
did one piece of good. Mrs. Boffin and me had no child of our 
own, and had sometimes wished that how we had one. But not 
now. 'We might both of us die,' says Mrs. Boffin, 'and other 
eyes might see that lonely look in our child.' So of a night, when 
it was very cold, or when the wind roared, or the rain dripped 
heavy, she would wake sobbing, and call out in a fluster, ' Don't 
you see the poor child's face ? shelter the poor child ! ' — till 
in course of years it gently wore out, as many things do." 

"My dear Mr. Boffin, everything wears to rags," said Mortimer, 
with a light laugh. 

"I won't go so far as to say everything," returned Mr. Boffin, 
on whom his manner seemed to grate, "because there's some things 
that I never found among the dust. Well, sir. So Mrs. Boffin 
and me grow older and older in the old man's service, living and 
working pretty hard in it, till the old man is discovered dead in 
his bed. Then Mrs. Boffin and me seal up his box, always stand- 
ing on the table at the side of his bed, and having frequently heerd 
tell of the Temple as a spot where lawyer's dust is contracted for, 
I come down here in search of a lawyer to advise, and I see your 
young man up at this present elevation, chopping at the flies on 
the window-sill with his penknife, and I give him a Hoy ! not 
then having the pleasure of your acquaintance, and by that means 
come to gain the honour. Then you, and the gentleman in the 
uncomfortable neckcloth under the little archway in Saint Paul's 
Churchyard " 

" Doctors' Commons," observed Lightwood. 

" I understood it was another name," said Mr. Boffin, pausing, 
" but you know best. Then you and Doctor Scommons, you go 
to work, and you do the thing that's proper, and you and Doctor S. 
take steps for finding out the poor boy, and at last you do find out 
the poor boy, and me and Mrs. Boffin often exchange the obser- 



86 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

vation, '"We shall see him again, under happy circumstances.' But 
it was never to be ; and the want of satisfactoriness is, that after 
all the money never gets to him." 

"But it gets," remarked Lightwood, with a languid inclination 
of the head, "into excellent hands." 

" It gets into the hands of me and Mrs. Boffin only this very 
day and hour, and that's what I'm working round to, having 
waited for this day and hour a' purpose. Mr. Lightwood, here 
has been a wicked cruel murder. By that murder me and Mrs. 
Boffin mysteriously profit. For the apprehension and conviction 
of the murderer, we offer a reward of one tithe of the property — 
a reward of Ten Thousand Pound." 

"Mr. Boffin, it's too much." 

".Mr, Lightwood, me and Mrs. Boffin have fixed the sum to- 
gether, and we stand to it." 

" But let me represent to you," returned Lightwood, " speaking 
now with professional profundity, and not with individual imbe- 
cility, that the offer of such an immense reward is a temptation to 
forced suspicion, forced construction of circumstances, strained accu- 
sation, a whole tool-box of edged tools." 

"Well," said Mr. Boffin, a little staggered, "that's the sum we 
put o' one side for the purpose. Whether it shall be openly 
declared in the new notices that must now be put about in our 
names " 

"In your name, Mr. Boffin; in your name." 

" Very well ; in my name, which is the same as Mrs. Boffin's, 
and means both of us, is to be considered in drawing 'em up. 
But this is the first instruction that I, as the owner of the prop- 
erty, give to my lawyer on coming into it." 

"Your lawyer, Mr. Boffin," returned Lightwood, making a very 
short note of it with a very rusty pen, "has the gratification of 
taking the instruction. There is another ? " 

" There is just one other, and no more. Make me as compact 
a little will as can be reconciled with tightness, leaving the whole 
of the property to ' my beloved wife, Henerietty Boffin, sole execu- 
trix.' Make it as short as you can, using those words; but make 
it tight." 

At some loss to fathom Mr. Boffin's notions of a tight will, 
Lightwood felt his way. 

" I beg your pardon, but professional profundity must be exact. 
When you say tight " 

"I mean tight," Mr. Boffin explained. 

" Exactly so. And nothing can be more laudable. But is the 
tightness to bind Mrs. Boffin to any and what conditions ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 87 

"Bind Mrs. Boffin?" interposed her husband. "No! What 
are you thinking of? What I want is, to make it all hers so 
tight as that her hold of it can't be loosed." 

" Hers freely, to do what she likes with ? Hers absolutely 1 " 
" Absolutely ? " repeated Mr. Boffin, with a short sturdy laugh. 
" Hah ! I should think so ! It would be handsome in me to 
begin to bind Mrs. Boffin at this time of day ! " 

So that instruction, too, was taken by Mr. Lightwood ; and 
Mr. Lightwood, having taken it, was in the act of showing Mr. 
Boffin out, when Mr. Eugene Wrayburn almost jostled him in the 
doorway. Consequently Mr. Lightwood said, in his cool manner, 
"Let me make you two known to one another," and further signi- 
fied that Mr. Wrayburn was counsel learned in the law, and that, 
partly in the way of business and partly in the way of pleasure, 
he had imparted to Mr. Wrayburn some of the interesting facts of 
Mr. Boffin's biography. 

"Delighted," said Eugene — though he didn't look so— "to 
know Mr. Boffin." 

"Thankee, sir, thankee," returned that gentleman. "And how 
do 1/ou like the law ? " 

"A not particularly," returned Eugene. 

" Too dry for you, eh 1 Well, I suppose it wants some years of 
sticking to, before you master it. But there's nothing like work. 
Look at the bees." 

" I beg your pardon," returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, 
" but win you excuse my mentioning that I always protest against 
being referred to the bees 1 " 
" Do you ! " said Mr. Boffin. 

"I object on principle," said Eugene, "as a biped " 

" As a what ? " asked Mr. Boffin. 

"As a two-footed creature; — ! object on principle, as a 
two-footed creature, to being constantly referred to insects and 
four-footed creatures. I object to being required to model my 
proceedings according to the proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or 
the spider, or the camel. I fully admit that the camel, for 
instance, is an excessively temperate person ; but he has several 
stomachs to entertain himself with, and I have only one. Besides, 
I am not fitted up with a convenient cool cellar to keep my drink 

ill-" 1 ^ 

" But I said, you know," urged Mr. Boffin, rather at a loss lor 

an answer, "the bee." 

" Exactly. And may I represent to you that it's injudicious to 

say the bee? For the whole case is assumed. Conceding for a 

moment that there is any analogy between a bee and a man in a 



88 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

shirt and pantaloons (which I deny), and that it is settled- that 
the man is to learn from the bee (which I also deny), the question 
still remains, what is he to learn? To imitate? Or to avoid? 
When your friends the bees worry themselves to that highly flut- 
tered extent about their sovereign, and become perfectly distracted 
touching the slightest monarchical movement, are we men to learn 
the greatness of Tuft-hunting, or the littleness of the Court Circular? 
I am not clear, Mr. Bofiin, but that the hive may be satirical." 

"At all events, they work," said Mr. Boffin. 

" Ye-es," returned Eugene, disparagingly, "they work; but don't 
you think they overdo it ? They work so much more than they 
need — they make so much more than they can eat — they are so 
incessantly boring and buzzing at their one idea till Death comes 
upon them — that don't you think they overdo it? And are 
human labourers to have no holidays, because of the bees ? And 
am I never to have change of air, because the bees don't ? Mr. 
Boffin, I think honey excellent at breakfast ; but regarded in the 
light of my conventional schoolmaster and moralist, I protest 
against the tyrannical humbug of your friend the bee. With the 
highest respect for you." 

"Thankee," said Mr. Boffin. "Morning, morning!" 

But, the worthy Mr. Boffin jogged away with a comfortless 
impression he could have dispensed with, that there was a deal of 
unsatisfactoriness in the world, besides what he had recalled as 
appertaining to the Harmon property. And he was still jogging 
along Fleet Street in this condition of mind, when he became 
aware that he was closely tracked and observed by a man of gen- 
teel appearance. 

" Now then ? " said Mr. Boffin, stopping short, with his medita- 
tions brought to an abrupt check, " what's the next article ? " 

" I beg your pardon, Mr. Boffin." 

" My name too, eh ? How did you come by it ? I don't know 
you." 

" No, sir, you don't know me." 

Mr. Boffin looked full at the man, and the man looked full at 
him. 

" No," said Mr. Boffin, after a glance at the pavement, as if it 
were made of faces and he were trying to match the man's, " I 
donH know you." 

" I am nobody," said the stranger, " and not likely to be known ; 
but Mr. Boffin's wealth " 

" Oh ! that's got about already, has it ? " muttered Mr. Boffin. 

" — And his romantic manner of acquiring it, make him con- 
spicuous. You were pointed out to me the other day." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 89 

"Well," said Mr. Boffin, "I should say I was a disappintment 
to you when I ivas pinted out, if your politeness would allow you 
to confess it, for I am well aware I am not much to look at. 
What might you want with me ? Not in the law, are you ? " 

"No, sir." 

" No information to give, for a reward ? " 

"No, sir." 

There may have been a momentary mantling in the face of the 
man as he made the last answer, but it passed directly. 

" If I don't mistake, you have followed me from my lawyer's 
and tried to fix my attention. Say out ! Have you ? Or haven't 
you 1 " demanded Mr. Boffin, rather angry. 

"Yes." 

"Why have you?" 

" If you will allow me to walk beside you, Mr. Boffin, I will tell 
you. Would you object to turn aside into this place — I think it is 
called Clifford's Inn — where we can hear one another better than 
in the roaring street 1 " 

(" Now," thought Mr. Boffin, " if he proposes a game at skittles, 
or meets a country gentleman just come into property, or produces 
any article of jewellery he has found, I'll knock him down ! " 
With this discreet reflection, and carrying his stick in his arms 
much as Punch carries his, Mr. Boffin turned into Cliffbrd's Inn 
aforesaid.) 

" Mr. Boffin, I happened to be in Chancery Lane this morning, 
when I saw you going along before me. I took the liberty of 
following you, trjring to make up my mind to speak to you, till 
you went into your lawyer's. Then I waited outside till you came 
out." 

(" Don't quite sound like skittles, nor yet countiy gentleman, 
nor yet jewellery," thought Mr. Boffin, " but there's no knowing.") 

" I am afraid my object is a bold one, I am afraid it has little of 
the usual practical world about it, but I venture it. If you ask me, 
or if you ask yourself — which is more likely — what emboldens 
me, I answer, I have been strongly assured that you are a man of 
rectitude and plain dealing, with the soundest of sound hearts, 
and that you are blessed in a wife distinguished by the same 
qualities." 

" Your information is true of Mrs. Boffin, anyhow," was Mr. 
Boffin's answer, as he surveyed his new friend again. There was 
something repressed in the strange man's manner, and he walked 
with his eyes on the ground — though conscious, for all that, of 
Mr. Boffin's observation — and he spoke in a subdued voice. But 
his words came easily, and his voice was agreeable in tone, albeit 
constrained. 



90 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" When I add, I can discern for myself what the general tongue 
says of you — that you are quite unspoiled by Fortune, and not 
uplifted — I trust you will not, as a man of an open nature, sus- 
pect that I mean to flatter you, but will believe that all I mean is 
to excuse myself, these being my only excuses for my present intru- 
sion." 

("How much?" thought Mr. Boffin. " It must be coming to 
money. How much 1 ") 

" You will probably change your manner of living, Mr. Boffin, 
in your changed circumstances. You will probably keep a larger 
house, have many matters to arrange, and be beset by numbers of 
correspondents. If you would try me as your Secretary " 

" As ivhat ? " cried Mr. Boffin, with his eyes wide open. 

"Your Secretary." 

"Well," said Mr. Boffin, under his breath, "that's a queer 
thing ! " 

"Or," pursued the stranger, wondering at Mr. Boffin's wonder, 
"if you would try me as your man of business under any name, I 
know you would find me faithful and grateful, and I hope you 
would find me useful. You may naturally think that my immedi- 
ate object is money. Not so, for I would willingly serve you a year 
— two years — any term you might appoint — before that shpuld 
begin to be a consideration between us." 

"Where do you come from ?" asked Mr. Boffin. 

"I come," returned the other, meeting his eye, "from many 
countries." 

Mr. Boffin's acquaintance with the names and situations of 
foreign lands being limited in extent and somewhat confused in 
quality, he shaped his next question on an elastic model. 

" From — any particular place ? " 

" I have been in many places." 

" What have you been ? " asked Mr. Boffin. 

Here again he made no great advance, for the reply was, "I 
have been a student and a traveller." 

" But if it ain't a liberty to plump it out," said Mr. Boffin, " what 
do you do for your living ? " 

" I have mentioned," returned the other, with another look at 
him, and a smile, " what I aspire to do. I have been superseded 
as to some slight intentions I had, and I may say that I have now 
to begin life." 

Not very well knowing how to get rid of this applicant, and 
feeling the more embarrassed because his manner and appear- 
ance claimed a delicacy in which the worthy Mr. Boffin feared he 
himself might be deficient, that gentleman glanced into the mouldy 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 91 

little plantation, or cat-preserve, of Clifford's Inn, as it was that 
day, in search of a suggestion. Sparrows were there, cats were 
there, dry-rot and wet-rot were there, but it was not otherwise a 
suggestive spot. 

"All this time," said the stranger, producing a little pocket-book 
and taking out a card, "I have not mentioned my name. My 
name is Rokesmith. I lodge at one Mr. Wilfer's, at Hollo way." 

Mr. Boffin stared again. 

" Father of Miss Bella Wilfer ? " said he. 

"My landlord has a daughter named Bella. Yes; no doubt." 

Now, this name had been more or less in Mr. Boffin's thoughts 
all the morning, and for days before, therefore he said : 

" That's singular, too ! " unconsciously staring again, past all 
bounds of good manners, with the card in his hand. " Though, by- 
the-bye, I suppose it was one of that family that pinted me out ? " 

" No. I have never been in the streets with one of them." 

" Heard me talked of among 'em, though ? " 

" No. I occupy my own rooms, and have held scarcely any com- 
munication with them." 

" Odder and odder ! " said Mr. Boffin. " Well, sir, to tell you 
the truth, I don't know what to say to you." 

"Say nothing," returned Mr. Rokesmith; "allow me to call on 
you in a few days, I am not so unconscionable as to think it likely 
that you would accept me on trust at first sight, and take me out 
of the very street. Let me come to you for your further opinion, at 
your leisure." 

" That's fair, and I don't object," said Mr. Boffin ; " but it must be 
on condition that it's fully understood that I no more know that I 
shall ever be in want of any gentleman as Secretary — it was Sec- 
retary you said ; wasn't it 1 " 

"Yes." 

Again Mr. Boffin's eyes opened wide, and he stared at the appli- 
cant from head to foot, repeating, "Queer! — You're sure it was 
Secretary? Are you?" 

"I am sure I said so." 

" — As Secretary," repeated Mr. Boffin, meditating upon the 
word ; " I no more know that I may ever want a Secretary, or what 
not, than I do that I shall ever be in want of the man in the moon. 
Me and Mrs. Boffin have not even settled that we shall make any 
change in our way of life. Mrs. Boffin's inclinations certainly do 
tend towards Fashion ; but, being already set up in a fashionable 
way at the Bower, she may not make further alterations. However, 
sir, as you don't press yourself, I wish to meet you so far as saying, 
by all means call at the Bower if you like. Call in the course of a 



92. OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

week or two. At the same time, I consider that I ought to name, 
in addition to what I have ah'eady named, that I have in my 
employment a hterary man — ivith a wooden leg — as I have no 
thoughts of parting from." 

" I regret to hear I am in some sort anticipated," Mr. Rokesmith 
answered, evidently having heard it with surprise; "but perhaps 
other duties might arise 1 " 

"You see," returned Mr. Boffin, with a confidential sense of 
dignity, "as to my literary man's duties, they're clear. Profession- 
ally he declines and he falls, and as a friend he drops into poetry." 

Without observing that these duties seemed by no means clear 
to Mr. Rokesmith's astonished comprehension, Mr. Boffin went on : 

"And now, sir, I'll wish you good-day. You can call at the 
Bower any time in a week or two. It's not above a mile or so 
from you, and your landlord can direct you to it. But as he may 
not know it by its new name of Boffin's Bower, say, when you 
inquire of him, it's Harmon's ; will you 1 " 

"Harmoon's," repeated Mr. Rokesmith, seeming to have caught 
the sound imperfectly, " Harmarn's. How do you spell it?" 

"Why, as to the spelling of it," returned Mr. Boffin,, with great 
presence of mind, " that's your look out. Harmon's is all you've 
got to say to him. Morning, morning, morning ! " And so 
departed, without looking back. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MR. AND MRS. BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION. 

Betaking himself straight homeward, Mr. Boffin, without fur- 
ther let or hindrance, arrived at the Bower, and gave Mrs. Boffin 
(in a walking dress of black velvet and feathers, like a mourning 
coach-horse) an account of all he had said and done since break- 
fast. 

" This brings us round, my dear," he then pursued, " to the 
question we left unfinished : namely, whether there's to be any 
new go-in for Fashion." 

"Now, I'll tell you what I want. Noddy," said Mrs. Boffin, 
smoothing her dress with an air of immense enjoyment, " I want 
Society." 

" Fashionable Society, my dear ? " 

" Yes ! " cried Mrs. Boffin, laughing with the glee of a child. 
" Yes ! It's no good my being kept here like Wax- Work ; is it 
now ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 93 

" People have to pay to see Wax- Work, my dear," returned her 
husband, "whereas (though you'd be cheap at the same money) 
the neighbours is welcome to see you for nothing." 

"But it don't answer," said the cheerful Mrs. Boffin. "When 
we worked like the neighbours, we suited one another. Now we 
have left work off, we have left off suiting one another." 

"What, do you think of beginning work again?" Mr. Boffin 
hinted. 

" Out of the question ! We have come into a great fortune, 
and we must do what's right by our fortune ; we must act up to 
it." 

Mr. Boffin, who had a deep respect for his wife's intuitive wis- 
dom, replied, though rather pensively : "I suppose we must." 

"It's never been acted up to yet, and, consequently, no good 
has come of it," said Mrs. Boffin. 

"True, to the present time," Mr. Boffin assented, with his 
former pensiveness, as he took his seat upon his settle. " I hope 
good may be coming of it in the future time. Towards which, 
what's your views, old lady % " 

Mrs. Boffin, a smiling creature, broad of figure and simple of 
nature, with her hands folded in her lap, and with buxom creases 
in her throat, proceeded to expound her views. 

" / say a good house in a good neighbourhood, good things about 
us, good living, and good society. / say, live like our means, 
without extravagance, and be happy." 

"Yes. / say be happy, too," assented the still pensive Mr. 
Boffin. 

" Lor-a-m.ussy ! " exclaimed Mrs. Boffin, laughing and clapping 
her hands, and gaily rocking herself to and fro, " when I think of 
me in a light yellow chariot and pair, with silver boxes to the 
wheels " 

" Oh ! you was thinking of that, was you, my dear ? " 

"Yes!" cried the delighted creature. "And with a footman 
up behind, with a bar across, to keep his legs from being poled ! 
And with a coachman up in front, sinking down into a seat big 
enough for three of him, all covered with upholstery in green and 
white ! And with two bay horses tossing their heads and stepping 
higher than they trot long-ways ! And with you and me leaning 
back inside, as grand as ninepence ! Oh-h-h-h My ! Ha ha ha 
ha ha ! " 

Mrs. Boffin clapped her hands again, rocked herself again, beat 
her feet upon the floor, and wiped the tears of laughter from her 
eyes. 

" And what, my old lady," inquired Mr. Boffin, when he also 



94 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

had sympathetically laughed : "what's your views on the subject 
of the Bower?" 

" Shut it up. Don't part with it, but put somebody in it, to 
keep it." 

" Any other views ? " 

"Noddy," said Mrs. Boffin, coming from her fashionable sofa to 
his side on the plain settle, and hooking her comfortable arm 
through his, " Next I think — and I really have been thinking 
early and late — of the disappointed girl ; her that was so cruelly 
disappointed, you know, both of her husband and his riches. 
Don't you think we might do something for her ? Have her to 
live with us ? Or something of that sort ? " 

" Ne-ver once thought of the way of doing it ! " cried Mr. Boffin, 
smiting the table in his admiration. " What a thinking steam- 
ingein this old lady is. And she don't know how she does it. 
Neither does the ingein ! " 

Mrs. Boffin pulled his nearest ear, in acknowledgment of this 
piece of philosophy, and then said, gradually toning down to a 
motherly strain : " Last, and not least, I have taken a fancy. 
You remember dear little John Harmon, before he went to school 1 
Over yonder across the yard, at our fire ? Now that he is past all 
benefit of the money, and it's come to us, I should like to find 
some orphan child, and take the boy and adopt him and give him 
John's name, and provide for him. Somehow, it would make me 
easier, I fancy. Say it's only a whim " 

" But I don't say so," interposed her husband. 

" No, but deary, if you did " 

" I should be a Beast if I did," her husband interposed again. 

" That's as much as to say you agree ? Good and kind of you, 
and like you, deary ! And don't you begin to find it pleasant now," 
said Mrs. Boffin, once more radiant in her comely way from head 
to foot, and once more smoothing her dress with immense enjoy- 
ment, "don't you begin to find it pleasant already, to think that a 
child will be made brighter, and better, and happier, because of 
that poor sad child that day ? And isn't it pleasant to know that 
the good will be done with the poor sad child's own money "? " 

"Yes; and it's pleasant to know that you are Mrs. Boffin," 
said her husband, " and it's been a pleasant thing to know this 
many and many a year ! " It was ruin to Mrs. Boffin's aspirations, 
but, having so spoken, they sat side by side, a hopelessly Un- 
fashionable pair. 

These two ignorant and unpolished people had guided themselves 
so far on in their journey of life, by a religious sense of duty and 
desire to do right. Ten thousand weaknesses and absurdities 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 95 

midit have been detected in the breasts of both ; ten thousand 
vanities additional, possibly, in the breast of the woman But 
the hard wrathful and sordid nature that had wrung as much work 
out of them as could be got in their best days, for as little money 
as could be paid to hurry on their worst, had never been so warped 
but that it knew their moral straightness and respected it. Inits 
own despite, in a constant conflict with itself and them, it had 
done so And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops 
short at itself and dies with the doer of it ; but Good never 

Throuo-h his most inveterate purposes, the dead Jailer ot Har- 
mony Jafl had known these two faithful servants to be honest and 
true While he raged at them and reviled them for opposing him 
with the speech of the honest and true, it had scratched his stony 
heart and he had perceived the powerlessness of all his wealth to 
buy them if he had addressed himself to the attempt. So, even 
while he was their griping taskmaster, and never gave them a good 
word he had written their names down in his will. So, even while 
it was his daily declaration that he mistrusted all mankind — and 
sorely indeed he did mistrust all who bore any resemblance to him- 
self— he was as certain that these two people, surviving him, 
would be trustworthy in all things from the greatest to the least, 
as he was that he must surely die. , -r. t -^i, 

Mr and Mrs. Boffin, sitting side by side, with Fashion with- 
drawn to an immeasurable distance, fell to discussing how they 
could best find their orphan. Mrs. Boffin suggested advertisement 
in the newspapers, requesting orphans answering annexed descrip- 
tion to apply at the Bower on a certain day ; but Mr. Boffin wisely 
apprehending obstruction of the neighbouring thoroughfares by 
orphan swarms, this course was negatived. Mrs. Boffin next sug- 
gested application to their clergyman for a likely orphan Mr. 
Boffin thinking better of this scheme, they resolved to call upon 
the reverend gentleman at once, and to take the same opportunity 
of making acquaintance with Miss Bella Wilfer. In order that 
these visits might be visits of state, Mrs. Boffin's equipage was 

ordered out. , , , _ , -, 

This consisted of a long hammer-headed old horse, formerly used 
in the business, attached to a four-wheeled chaise of the same 
period, which had long been exclusively used by the Harmony Jail 
poultry as the favourite laying-place of several discreet hens. An 
unwonted application of corn to the horse, and of pamt and varmsn 
to the carriage, when both fell in as a part of the Boffin legacy, 
had made what Mr. Boffin considered a neat turn-out of the who e ; 
and a driver being added, in the person of a long hammer-headed 
young man who was a very good match for the horse, left nothing 



96 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

to be desired. He, too, had been formerly used in the business, 
but was now entombed by an honest jobbing tailor of the district 
in a perfect Sepulchre of coat and gaiters, sealed with ponderous 
buttons. 

Behind this domestic, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin took their seats in 
the back compartment of the vehicle : which was sufficiently com- 
modious, but had an undignified and alarming tendency, in getting 
over a rough crossing, to hiccup itself away from the front com- 
partment. On their being descried emerging from the gates of 
the Bower, the neighbourhood turned out at door and window to 
salute the Boffins. Among those who were ever and again left 
behind, staring after the equipage, were many youthful spirits, who 
hailed it in stentorian tones w4th sucli congratulations as " Nod-dy 
Bof-fin ! " " Bof-fin's mon-ey ! " " Down with the dust. Boffin ! " 
and other similar compliments. These, the hammer-headed young 
man took in such ill part that he often impaired the majesty of the 
progress by pulling up short, and making as though he would 
alight to exterminate the offenders ; a purpose from which he only 
allowed himself to be dissuaded after long and lively arguments 
with his employers. 

At length the Bower district was left behind, and the peaceful 
dwelling of the Reverend Frank Milvey was gained. The Rever- 
end Frank Milvey's abode was a very modest abode, because his 
income was a very modest income. He was officially accessible 
to every blundering old woman who had incoherence to bestow 
upon him, and readily received the Boffins. He was quite a young 
man, expensively educated and wretchedly paid, with quite a young 
wife and half-a-dozen quite young children. He was under the 
necessity of teaching and translating from the classics, to eke out 
his scanty means, yet was generally expected to have more time to 
spare than the idlest person in the parish, and more money than 
the richest. He accepted the needless inequalities and inconsis- 
tencies of his life, with a kind of conventional submission that was 
almost slavish ; and any daring layman who would have adjusted 
such burdens as his, more decently and graciously, would have had 
small help from him. 

With a ready patient face and manner, and yet with a latent 
smile that showed a quick enough observation of Mrs. Boffin's 
dress, Mr. Milvey, in his little back-room — charged with sounds 
and cries as though the six children above were coming down 
through the ceiling, and the roasting leg of mutton below were 
coming up through the floor — listened to Mrs. Boffin's statement 
of her want of an orphan. 

"I think," said Mr. Milvey, "that you have never had a child 
of your own, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin ? " 




THE BOFFIX PROGRESS. 



98 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Never. 

" But, like the Kings and Queens in the Fairy Tales, I suppose 
you have wished for one 1 " 

In a general way, yes, 

Mr. Milvey smiled again, as he remarked to himself, " Those 
kings and queens were always wishing for children." It occurred 
to him, perhaps, that if they had been Curates, their wishes might 
have tended in the opposite direction. 

"I think," he pursued, "we had better take Mrs. Milvey into 
our Council. Slie is indispensable to me. If you please, I'll call 
her." 

So, Mr. Milvey called, " Margaretta, my dear ! " and Mrs. 
Milvey came down. A pretty, bright little woman, something 
worn by anxiety, who had repressed many pretty tastes and bright 
fancies, and substituted in their stead, schools, soup, flannel, coals, 
and all the week-day cares and Sunday coughs of a large popula- 
tion, young and old. As gallantly had Mr. Milvey repressed much 
in himself that naturally belonged to his old studies and old 
fellow-students, and taken up among the poor and their children 
with the hard crumbs of life. 

" Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, my dear, whose good fortune you have 
heard of" 

Mrs. Milvey, with the most unaffected grace in the world, con- 
gratulated them, and was glad to see them. Yet her engaging 
face, being an open as well as a perceptive one, was not without 
her husband's latent smile. 

" Mrs. Boffin wishes to adopt a little boy, my dear." 

Mrs. Milvey looking rather alarmed, her husband added : 

"An orphan, my dear." 

" Oh ! " said Mrs. Milvey, reassured for her own little boys. 

"And I was thinking, Margaretta, that perhaps old Mrs. 
Goody's grandchild might answer the purpose." 

" Oh, my dear Frank ! I don't think that would do ! " 

"No?" 

"Oh 710/" 

The smiling Mrs. Boffin, feeling it incumbent on her to take 
part in the conversation, and being charmed with the emphatic 
little wife and her ready interest, here offered her acknowledgments 
and inquired what there was against him ? 

"I don't think," said Mrs. Milvey, glancing at the Reverend 
Frank — " and I believe my husband will agree with me when he 
considers it again — ^that you could possibly keep that orphan 
clean from snuff. Because his grandmother takes so many ounces, 
and drops it over him." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 99 

" But he would not be living with his grandmother then, Mar- 
garetta," said Mr. Milvey. 

" No, Frank, but it would be impossible to keep her from Mrs. 
Boffin's house ; and the more there was to eat and drink there, the 
oftener she would go. And she is an inconvenient woman. I 
Ao/je it's not uncharitable to remember that last Christmas Eve she 
drank eleven cups of tea, and grumbled all the time. And she is 
not a grateful woman, Frank. You recollect her addressing a 
crowd outside this house, about her wrongs, when, one night after 
we had gone to bed, she brought back the petticoat of new flannel 
that had been given her, because it was too short." 

"That's true," said Mr. Milvey. "I don't think that would 
do. Would little Harrison " 

" Oh, Frank I " remonstrated his emphatic wife. 

"He has no grandmother, my dear." 

" No, but I don't think Mrs. Boffin would like an orphan who 
squints so tmichy 

" That's true again," said Mr. Milvey, becoming haggard with 
perplexity. " If a little girl would do " 

" But, my clear Frank, Mrs. Boffin wants a boy." 

"That's true again," said Mr. Milvey. "Tom Bocker is a nice 
boy " (thoughtfully). 

" But I doubt, Frank," Mrs. Milvey hinted, after a little hesita- 
tion, "if Mrs. Boffin wants an orphan quite nineteen, who drives a 
cart and waters the roads." 

Mr. Milvey referred the point to Mrs. Boffin in a look ; on that 
smiling lady's shaking her black velvet bonnet and bows, he re- 
marked, in lower spirits, " That's true again." 

"I am sure," said Mrs. Boffin, concerned at giving so much 
trouble, "that if I had known you would have taken so much 
pains, sir — and you too, ma'am — I don't think I would have 
come." 

" Pray don't say that ! " urged Mrs. Milvey. 

" No, don't say that," assented Mr. Milvey, " because we are so 
much obliged to you for giving us the preference." Which Mrs. 
Milvey confirmed ; and really the kind, conscientious couple spoke 
as if they kept some profitable orphan warehouse and were person- 
ally patronised. " But it is a responsible trust," added Mr. Milvey, 
"and difficult to discharge. At the same time, we are naturally 
very unwilling to lose the chance you so kindly give us, and if you 
could aff'ord us a day or two to look about us, — you know, Mar- 
garetta, we might carefully examine the workhouse, and the Infant 
School, and your District." 

" To be sure I " said the emphatic little wife. 



100 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"We have orphans, I know," pursued Mr. Milvey, quite with 
the air as if he might have added, "in stock," and quite as 
anxiously as if there were great competition in the business and he 
were afraid of losing an order, " over at the clay-j^its ; but they are 
employed by relations or friends, and I am afraid it would come at 
last to a transaction in the way of barter. And even if you ex- 
changed blankets for the cliild — or books and firing — it would 
be impossible to prevent their being turned into liquor." 

Accordingly, it was resolved that Mr. and Mrs. Milvey should 
search for an orphan likely to suit, and as free as possible from the 
foregoing objections, and should communicate again with Mrs. 
Boffin. Then, Mr. Boffin took the liberty of mentioning to Mr. 
Milvey that if Mr. Milvey would do him the kindness to be per- 
petually his banker to the extent of "a twenty pound note or so," 
to be expended without any reference to him, he would be heartily 
obliged. At this, both Mr. Milvey and Mrs. Milvey were quite as 
much pleased as if they had no wants of their own, but only knew 
what poverty was, in the persons of other people ; and so the inter- 
view terminated with satisfliction and good opinion on all sides. 

"Now, old lady," said Mr. Boffin, as they resumed their seats 
behind the hammer-headed horse and man : " having made a very 
agreeable visit there, we'll try Wilfer's." 

It appeared, on their drawing up at the family gate, that to try 
Wilfer's was a thing more easily projected than done, on account 
of the extreme difficulty of getting into that establishment ; three 
pulls at the bell producing no external result, though each was 
attended by audible sounds of scampering and rushing within. At 
the fourth tug — vindictively administered by the hammer-headed 
young man — Miss Lavinia appeared, emerging from the house in 
an accidental manner, with a bonnet and parasol, as designing to 
take a contemplative walk. The young lady was astonished to 
find visitors at the gate, and expressed her feelings in appropriate 
action. 

"Here's Mr. and Mrs. Boffin!" growled the hammer-headed 
young man through the bars of the gate, and at the same time 
shaking it, as if he were on view in a Menagerie ; " they've been 
here half-an-hour." 

" Who did you say ? " asked Miss Lavinia. 

" Mr. and Mrs. Boffin ! " returned the young man, rising into 
a roar. 

Miss Lavinia tripped up the steps to the house-door, tripped 
down the steps with the key, tripped across the little garden, 
and opened the gate. "Please to walk in," said Miss Lavinia, 
haughtily. " Our servant is out." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 101 

Mr. and Mrs. Boffin complying, and pausing in the little hall 
until Miss Lavinia came up to show them where to go next, per- 
ceived three pairs of listening legs upon the stairs above. Mrs. 
Wilfer's legs, Miss Bella's legs, Mr. George Sampson's legs. 

"Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, I think?" said Lavinia, in a warning 
voice. 

Strained attention on the part of Mrs. Wilfer's legs, of Miss 
Bella's legs, of Mr. George Sampson's legs. 

"Yes, miss." 

" If you'll step this way — down these stairs — I'll let Ma 
know." 

Excited flight of Mrs. Wilfer's legs, of Miss Bella's legs, of Mr. 
George Sampson's legs. 

After waiting some quarter of an hour alone in the family sitting- 
room, which presented traces of having been so hastily arranged 
after a meal, that one might have doubted whether it was made 
tidy for visitors, or cleared for blindman's buff, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin 
became aware of the entrance of Mrs. Wilfer, majestically faint, 
and with a condescending stitch in her side : which was her com- 
pany manner. 

"Pardon me," said Mrs. Wilfer, after the first salutations, and 
as soon as she had adjusted the handkerchief under her chin, and 
waved her gloved hands, "to what am I indebted for this hon- 
our?" 

"To make short of it, ma'am," returned Mr. Boffin, "perhaps 
you may be acquainted with the names of me and Mrs. Boffin, as 
having come into a certain property." 

" I have heard, sir," returned Mrs. Wilfer, with a dignified bend 
of her head, " of such being the case." 

"And I dare say, ma'am," pursued Mr. Boffin, while Mrs. 
Boffin added confirmatory nods and smiles, "you are not very 
much inclined to take kindly to us?" 

" Pardon me," said Mrs. Wilfer. " 'Twere unjust to visit upon 
Mr. and Mrs. Boffin a calamity which was doubtless a dispen- 
sation." These words were rendered the more effective by a 
serenely heroic expression of suffering. 

"That's fairly meant, I am sure," remarked the honest Mr. 
Boffin; "Mrs. Boffin and me, ma'am, are plain people, and we 
don't want to pretend to anything, nor yet to go round and round 
at anything : because there's always a straight way to everything. 
Consequently we make this call to say, that we shall be glad to 
have the honour and pleasure of your daughter's acquaintance, and 
that we shall be rejiced if your daughter will come to consider our 
house in the light of her home equally with this. In short, we 



102 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

want to cheer your daughter, and to give lier the ojiportunity of 
sharing such pleasures as we are a going to take ourselves. We 
want to brisk her up, and brisk her about, and give her a change." 

" That's it ! " said the open-hearted Mrs. Boffin. " Lor ! Let's 
be comfortable." 

Mrs. Wilfer bent her head in a distant manner to her lady vis- 
itor, and with majestic monotony replied to the gentleman : 

"Pardon nie. I have several daughters. Which of my daugh- 
ters am I to understand is thus favoured by the kind intentions of 
Mr. Boffin and his lady?" 

" Don't you see ? " the ever-smiling Mrs. Boffin put in. " Natu- 
rally, Miss Bella, you know." 

" Oh-h ! " said Mrs. Wilfer, with a severely unconvinced look. 
"My daughter Bella is accessible and shall speak for herself." 
Then opening the door a little way, simultaneously with a sound 
of scuttling outside it, the good lady made the proclamation, 
" Send Miss Bella to me ! " Which proclamation, though grandly 
formal, and one might almost say heraldic, to hear, was in fact 
enunciated with her maternal eyes reproachfully glaring on that 
young lady in the flesh — and in so much of it that she was re- 
tiring with difficulty into the small closet under the stairs, appre- 
hensive of the emergence of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin. 

"The avocations of R. W., my husband," Mrs. Wilfer exjDlained, 
on resuming her seat, "keep him fully engaged in the City at this 
time of the day, or he would have had the honour of participating 
in your reception beneath our humble roof." 

" Very pleasant premises ! " said Mr. Boffin, cheerfully. 

" Pardon me, sir," returned Mrs. Wilfer, correcting him, "it is 
the abode of conscious though independent Poverty." 

Finding it rather difficult to pursue the conversation down this 
' road, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin sat staring at mid-air, and Mrs. Wilfer 
sat silently giving them to understand that every breath she drew 
required to be drawn with a self-denial rarely paralleled in history, 
until Miss Bella appeared : whom Mrs. Wilfer presented, and to 
whom she explained the purpose of the visitors. 

" I am much obliged to you, I am sure," said Miss Bella, coldly 
shaking her curls, " but I doubt if I have the inclination to go out 
at all." 

" Bella ! " Mrs. Wilfer admonished her ; " Bella, you must 
conquer this." 

"Yes, do what your Ma says, and conquer it, my dear," urged 
Mrs. Boffin, "because Ave shall be so glad to have you, and be- 
cause you are much too pretty to keep yourself shut up." With 
that, the pleasant creature gave her a kiss, and patted her on her 



OUR MUTUAL FRIP]ND. 103 

dimpled shoulders ; Mrs, Wilfer sitting stiffly by, like a functionary 
presiding over an interview, previous to an execution. 

"We are going to move into a nice house," said Mrs. Boffin, 
who was woman enough to compromise Mr. Boffin on that point, 
when he couldn't very well contest it ; " and we are going to set 
up a nice carriage, and we'll go everywhere and see everything. 
And you mustn't," seating Bella beside her, and patting her hand, 
"you mustn't feel a dislike to us to begin with, because we couldn't 
help it, you know, my dear." 

With the natural tendency of youth to yield to candour and 
sweet temper. Miss Bella was so touched by the simplicity of 
this address that she frankly returned Mrs. Boffin's kiss. Not at 
all to the satisfaction of that good woman of the world, her 
mother, who sought to hold the advantageous ground of obliging 
the Boffins instead of being obliged. 

" My youngest daughter, Lavinia," said Mrs. Wilfer, glad to 
make a diversion, as that young lady reappeared. " Mr. George 
Sampson, a friend of the family." 

The friend of the family was in that stage of the tender passion 
which bound him to regard everybody else as the foe of the family. 
He put the round head of his cane in his mouth, like a stopper, 
when he sat down. As if he felt himself full to the throat with 
affronting sentiments. And he eyed the Boffins with implacable 
eyes. 

" If you like to bring your sister with you when you come to 
stay with us," said Mrs. Boffin, " of course we shall be glad. The 
better you please yourself. Miss Bella, the better you'll please 
us." 

" Oh, my consent is of no consequence at all, I suppose 1 " cried 
Miss Lavinia. 

" Lavvy," said her sister, in a low voice, " have the goodness to 
be seen and not heard." 

"No, I won't," replied the sharp Lavinia. "I'm not a child, 
to be taken notice of by strangers." 

"You are a child." 

"I'm not a child, and I won't be taken notice of. 'Bring your 
sister,' indeed ! " 

" Lavinia ! " said Mrs. Wilfer. " Hold ! I will not allow you 
to utter in my presence the absurd suspicion that any strangers — 
I care not what their names — can patronise my child. Do you 
dare to suppose, you ridiculous girl, that Mr. and Mrs. Boffin 
would enter these doors upon a patronising errand ; or, if they did, 
would remain within them, only for one single instant, while your 
mother had the strength yet remaining in her vital frame to re- 



104 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

quest them to depart "? You little know your mother, if you pre- 
sume to think so." 

"It's all very fine," Lavinia began to grumble, when Mrs. 
Wnfer repeated : 

"•Hold ! I will not allow this. Do you not know what is due 
to guests? Do you not comprehend that in presuming to hint 
that this lady and gentleman could have any idea of patronising 
any member of your family — I care not which — you accuse them 
of an impertinence little less than insane ? " 

"Never mind me and Mrs. Boffin, ma'am," said Mr. Boffin, 
smilingly; "we don't care." 

"Pardon me, but / do," returned Mrs. Wilfer. 

Miss Lavinia laughed a short laugh as she muttered, " Yes, to 
be sure." 

" And I require my audacious child," proceeded Mrs. Wilfer, 
with a withering look at her youngest, on whom it had not the 
slightest effect, " to please to be just to her sister Bella ; to re- 
member that her sister Bella is much sought after ; and that when 
her sister Bella accepts an attention, she considers herself to be 
conferring qui-i-ite as much honour," — this with an indignant 
shiver, — "as she receives." 

But here Miss Bella repudiated, and said quietly, " I can speak 
for myself, you know, Ma. You needn't bring me in, please." 

" And it's all very well aiming at others through convenient me," 
said the irrepressible Lavinia, spitefully; "but I should like to 
ask George Sampson what he says to it." 

"Mr. Sampson," proclaimed Mrs. Wilfer, seeing that young 
gentleman take his stopper out, and so darkly fixing him with her 
eyes as that he put it in again : " Mr. Sampson, as a friend of 
this family, and a frequenter of this house, is, I am persuaded, 
far too well-bred to interpose on such an invitation." 

This exaltation of the young gentleman moved the conscientious 
Mrs. Boffin to repentance for having done him an injustice in her 
mind, and consequently to saying that she and Mr. Boffin would at 
any time be glad to see him ; an attention which he handsomely 
acknowledged by replying, with his stopper unremoved, "Much 
obliged to you, but I'm always engaged, day and night." 

However, Bella compensating for all drawbacks by responding to 
the advances of the Boffins in an engaging way, that easy pair were 
on the whole well satisfied, and proposed to the said Bella that as 
soon as they should be in a condition to receive her in a manner 
suitable to their desires, Mrs. Boffin should return with notice of 
the fact. This arrangement Mrs. Wilfer sanctioned with a stately 
inclination of her head and wave of her gloves, as who should say, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 105 

"Your demerits shall be overlooked, and you shall be mercifully 
gratified, poor people." 

" By-the-bye, ma'am," said Mr. Bofiin, turning back as he was 
going, "you have a lodger?" 

"A gentleman," Mrs. Wilfer answered, qualifying the low 
expression, "undoubtedly occupies our first floor." 

" I may call him Our Mutual Friend," said Mr. Boffin. " What 
sort of a fellow is Our Mutual Friend, now ? Do you like him ? " 

"Mr. Rokesmith is very punctual, very quiet, a very eligible 
inmate." 

" Because," Mr. Boffin explained, " you must know that I am 
not particularly well acquainted with Our Mutual Friend, for I 
have only seen him once. You give a good account of him. Is he 
at home?" 

" Mr. Rokesmith is at home," said Mrs. Wilfer ; " indeed," 
pointing through the window, " there he stands at the garden gate. 
Waiting for you, perhaps 1 " 

" Perhaps so," replied Mr. Boffin. " Saw me come in, maybe." 

Bella had closely attended to this short dialogue. Accompany- 
ing Mrs. Boffin to the gate, she as closely watched what followed. 

"How are you, sir, how are you?" said Mr. Boffin. "This is 
Mrs. Boffin. Mr, Rokesmith, that I told you of, my dear." 

She gave him good day, and he bestirred himself and helped her 
to her seat, and the like, with a ready hand. 

" Good bye for the present. Miss Bella," said Mrs. Boffin, calling 
out a hearty parting. " We shall meet again soon ! And then I 
hope I shall have my little John Harmon to show you." 

Mr. Rokesmith, who was at the wheel adjusting the skirts of her 
dress, suddenly looked behind him, and around him, and then looked 
up at her, with a face so pale that Mrs. Boffin cried : 

" G-racious ! " And after a moment, " What's the matter, sir ? " 

"How can you show her the Dead?" returned Mr. Roke- 
smith. 

" It's only an adopted child. One I have told her of. One I'm 
going to give the name to ! " 

"You took me by surprise," said Mr. Rokesmith, "and it 
sounded like an omen, that you should speak of showing the Dead 
to one so young and blooming." 

Now, Bella suspected by this time that Mr. Rokesmith admired 
her. Whether the knowledge (for it was rather that than sus- 
picion) caused her to incline to him a little more, or a little less, 
than she had done at first ; whether it rendered her eager to find 
out more about him, because she sought to establish reason for her 
distrust, or because she sought to free him from it, was as yet dark 



106 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

to her own heart. But at most times he occupied a great amount 
of her attention, and she had set her attention closely on this 
incident. 

That he knew it as well as she, she knew as well as he, when 
they were left together standing on the path by the garden gate. 

" Those are worthy people. Miss Wilfer." 

"Do you know them well?" asked Bella. 

He smiled, reproaching her, and she coloured, reproaching her- 
self — both, with the knowledge that she had meant to entrap him 
into an answer not true — wdien he said "I know o/them." 

" Truly, he told us he had seen you but once." 

" Truly, I supposed he did." 

Bella was nervous now, and would have been glad to recall her 
question. 

" You thought it strange that, feeling much interested in you, I 
should start at what sounded like a proposal to bring you into con- 
tact with the murdered man who lies in his grave. I might have 
known — of course in a moment should have known — that it 
could not have that meaning. But my interest remains." 

Re-entering the family room in a meditative state. Miss Bella 
was received by the irrepressible Lavinia with : 

" There, Bella ! At last I hope you have got your wishes real- 
ised — by your Boffins. You'll be rich enough now — with your 
Boffins. You can have as much ffirting as you like — at your 
Boffins'. But you won't take me to your Boffins, I can tell you — 
you and your Boffins too ! " 

" If," quoth Mr. George Sampson, moodily pulling his stopper 
out, " Miss Bella's Mr. Boffin comes any more of his nonsense to 
me, I only wish him to understand, as betwixt man and man, that 

he does it at his per " and was going to say peril ; but Miss 

Lavinia having no confidence in his mental powers, and feeling his 
oration to have no definite application to any circumstances, jerked 
his stopper in again, with a sharpness that made his eyes water. 

And now the worthy Mrs. Wilfer, having used her youngest 
daughter as a lay figure for the edification of these Boffins, became 
bland to her, and proceeded to develop her last instance of force of 
character, which was still in reserve. This was to illuminate the 
family with her remarkable- powers as a physiognomist; powers 
that terrified R. W. whenever let loose, as being always fraught 
with gloom and evil which no inferior prescience was aware of. 
And this Mrs. Wilfer now did, be it observed, in jealousy of these 
Boffins, in the very same moments wlien she was already reflecting 
how she w^ould flourish these very same Boffins and the state they 
kept, over the heads of her Boffinless friends. 



OUR MUTUAL FEIEND. 107 

" Of their manners," said Mrs. Wilfer, " I say nothing. Of their 
appearance, I say nothing. Of the disinterestedness of their inten- 
tions towards Bella, I say nothing. But the craft, the secrecy, the 
dark deep underhanded plotting, written in Mrs. Boffin's counte- 
nance, make me shudder." 

As an incontrovertible proof that those baleful attributes were 
all there, Mrs. Wilfer shuddered on the spot. 



CHAPTER X. 

A MARRIAGE CONTRACT. 

There is excitement in the Veneering mansion. The mature 
young lady is going to be married (powder and all) to the mature 
young gentleman, and she is to be married from the Veneering 
house, and the Veneerings are to give the breakfast. The Ana- 
lytical, who objects as a matter of principle to everything that 
occurs on tlie premises, necessarily objects to the match ; but his 
consent has been dispensed with, and a spring van is delivering its 
load of greenhouse plants at the door, in order that to-morrow's 
feast may be crowded with flowers. 

The mature young lady is a lady of property. The mature 
young gentleman is a gentleman of property. He invests his 
property. He goes, in a condescending amateurish way, into the 
City, attends meetings of Directors, and has to do with traffic in 
Shares. As is well known to the wise in their generation, traffic 
in Shares is the one thing to have to do with in this world. Have 
no antecedents, no established character, no cultivation, no ideas, 
no manners ; have Shares. Have Shares enough to be on Boards 
of Direction in capital letters, oscillate on mysterious business 
between London and Paris, and be great. Where does he come 
from? Shares. Where is he going to? Shares. What are his 
tastes ? Shares. Has he any principles 1 Shares. What squeezes 
him into Parliament? Shares. Perhaps he never of himself 
achieved success in anything, never originated anything, never 
produced anything ! Sufficient answer to all ; Shares. mighty 
Shares ! To set those blaring images so high, and to cause us 
smaller vermin, as under the influence of henbane or opium, to cry 
out night and day, " Relieve us of our money, scatter it for us, buy 
us and sell us, ruin us, only we beseech ye take rank among the 
powers of the earth, and fatten on us ! " 

While the Loves and Graces have been preparing this torch for 



108 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Hymen, which is to be kindled to-morrow, Mr. Twemlow has 
suffered much in his mind. It would seem that both the mature 
young lady and the mature young gentleman must indubitably be 
Veneering's oldest friends. Wards of his, perhaps 1 Yet that can 
scarcely be, for they are older than himself. Veneering has been 
in their confidence throughout, and has done much to lure them to 
the altar. He has mentioned to Twemlow how he said to Mrs. 
Veneering, "Anastatia, this must be a match." He has men- 
tioned to Twemlow how he regards Sophronia Akershem (the 
mature young lady) in the light of a sister, and Alfred Lammle 
(the mature young gentleman) in the light of a brother. Twemlow 
has asked him whether he went to school as a junior with Alfred ? 
He has answered, " Not exactly." Whether Sophronia was adopted 
by his mother? He has answered, "Not precisely so." Twem- 
low's hand has gone to his forehead with a lost air. 

But, two or three weeks ago, Twemlow, sitting over his news- 
paper, and over his dry toast and weak tea, and over the stable- 
yard in Duke Street, St. James's, received a highly-perfumed 
cocked-hat and monogram from Mrs. Veneering, entreating her 
dearest Mr. T., if not particularly engaged that day, to come like a 
charming soul and make a fourth at dinner with dear Mr. Podsnap, 
for the discussion of an interesting family topic; the last three 
words doubly underlined and pointed with a note of admiration. 
And Twemlow, replying, " Not engaged, and more than delighted," 
goes, and this takes place : 

"My dear Twemlow," says Veneering, "your ready response to 
Anastatia's unceremonious invitation is truly kind, and like an old, 
old friend. You know our dear friend Podsnap ? " 

Twemlow ought to know the dear friend Podsnap who covered 
him with so much confusion, and he says he does know him, and 
Podsnap reciprocates. Apparently, Podsnap has been so wrought 
upon in a short time, as to believe that he has been intimate in 
the house many, many, many years. In the friendliest manner he 
is making himself quite at home with his back to the fire, execut- 
ing a statuette of the Colossus at Rhodes. Twemlow has before 
noticed in his feeble way how soon the Veneering guests become 
infected Avith the Veneering fiction. Not, however, that he has 
the least notion of its being his own case. 

"Our friends, Alfred and Sophronia," pursues Veneering the 
veiled prophet : " our friends, Alfred and Sophronia, you will be 
glad to hear, my dear fellows, are going to be married. As my 
wife and I make it a family affair, the entire direction of which 
we take upon ourselves, of course our first step is to communicate 
the fact to our family friends," 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 109 

(" Oh ! " thinks Twemlow, with his eyes on Podsnap, " then 
there are only two of us, and he's the other.") 

"I did hope," Veneering goes on, "to have had Lady Tippins 
to meet you ; but she is always in request, and is unfortunately 
engaged." 

("Oh!" thinks Twemlow, with his eyes wandering, "then 
there are three of us, and shes the other.") 

"Mortimer Lightwood," resumes Veneering, "whom you both 
know, is out of town ; but he writes in his whimsical manner, 
that as we ask him to be bridegroom's best man when the cere- 
mony takes place, he will not refuse, though he doesn't see what 
he has to do with it." 

("Oh!" thinks Twemlow, with his eyes rolling, "then there 
are four of us, and he's the other.") 

"Boots and Brewer," observes Veneering," whom you also 
know, I have not asked to-day; but I reserve them for the 
occasion." 

("Then," thinks Twemlow, with his eyes shut, "there are 

si " But here collapses and does not completely recover until 

dinner is over and the Analytical has been requested to withdraw.) 

" We now come," says Veneering, " to the point, the real point, 
of our little family consultation. Sophronia, having lost both 
father and mother, has no one to give her away." 

"Give her away yourself," says Podsnap. 

" My dear Podsnap, no. For three reasons. Firstly, because I 
couldn't take so much upon myself when I have respected family 
friends to remember. Secondly, because I am not so vain as to 
think that I look the part. Thirdly, because Anastatia is a little 
superstitious on the subject and feels averse to my giving away 
anybody until baby is old enough to be married." 

"What would happen if he did?" Podsnap inquires of Mrs. 
Veneering. 

" My dear Mr. Podsnap, it's very foolish, I know, but I have an 
instinctive presentiment that if Hamilton gave away anybody else 
first, he would never give away baby." Thus Mrs. Veneering, 
with her open hands pressed together, and each of her eight aqui- 
line fingers looking so very like her one aquiline nose that the 
bran-new jewels on them seemed necessary for distinction's sake. 

" But, my dear Podsnap," quoth Veneering, " there is a tried 
friend of our family who, I think and hope you will agree with 
me, Podsnap, is the friend on whom this agreeable duty almost 
naturally devolves. That friend," saying the words as if the com- 
pany were about a hundred and fifty in number, "is now among 
us. That friend is Twemlow." 



110 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Certainly ! " from Podsnap. 

''That friend," Veneering repeats with greater firmness, "is our 
dear good Twemlow. And I cannot sufficiently express to you, 
my dear Podsnap, the pleasure I feel in having this opinion of 
mine and Anastatia's so readily confirmed by you, that other equally 
familiar and tried friend who stands in the proud position — I 
meaii who proudly stands in the position — or I ought rather to 
say, who places Anastatia and myself in the proud position of him- 
self standing in the simple position — of baby's godfather." And, 
indeed, Veneering is much relieved in mind to find that Podsnap 
betrays no jealousy of Twemlow's elevation. 

So, it lias come to pass that the spring- van is strewing flowers 
on the rosy hours and on the staircase, and that Twemlow is sur- 
veying the ground on which he is to play his distinguished part to- 
morrow. He has already been to the church, and taken note of 
the various impediments in the aisle, under the auspices of an ex- 
tremely dreary widow who opens the pews, and whose left hand 
appears to be in a state of acute rheumatism, but is in fact volun- 
tarily doubled up to act as a money-box. 

And now Veneering shoots out of the Study wherein he is accus- 
tomed, when contemplative, to give his mind to the carving and 
gilding of the Pilgrims going to Canterbury, in order to show 
Twemlow the little flourish he has prepared for the trumpets of 
fashion, describing how that on the seventeenth instant, at St. 
James's Church, the Reverend Blank Blank, assisted by the Rev- 
erend Dash Dash, united in the bonds of matrimony, Alfred 
Lammle, Esquire, of Sackville Street, Piccadilly, to Sophronia, only 
daughter of the late Horatio Akershem, Esquire, of Yorkshire. 
Also how the fair bride was married from the house of Hamilton 
Veneering, Esquire, of Stucconia, and was given away by Melvin 
Twemlow, Esquire, of Duke Street, St. James's, second cousin to 
Lord Snigsworth, of Snigsworthy Park. While perusing which 
composition, Twemlow makes some opaque approach to perceiving 
that if the Reverend Blank Blank and the Reverend Dash Dash 
fail, after this introduction, to become enrolled in the list of Veneer- 
ing's dearest and oldest friends, they will have none but themselves 
to thank for it. 

After which, appears Sophronia (whom Twemlow has seen twice 
in his lifetime), to thank Twemlow for counterfeiting the late 
Horatio Akershem, Esquire, broadly of Yorkshire. And after her, 
appears Alfred (whom Twemlow has seen once in his lifetime), to 
do the same, and to make a pasty sort of glitter, as if he were con- 
structed for candlelight only, and had been let out into daylight by 
some grand mistake. And after that, comes Mrs. Veneering, in a 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. Ill 

pervadingly aquiline state of figure, and with transparent little 
knobs on her temper, like the little transparent knob on the 
bridge of her nose, "Worn out by worry and excitement," as she 
tells her dear Mr. Twemlow, and reluctantly revived with cura^oa 
by the Analytical. And after that, the bridesmaids begin to come 
by railroad from various parts of the country, and to come like 
adorable recruits enlisted by a sergeant not present ; for, on arriv- 
ing at the Veneering depot, they are in a barrack of strangers. 

So, Twemlow goes home to Duke Street, St. James's, to take a 
plate of mutton broth with a chop in it, and a look at the marriage 
service, in order that he may cut in at the riglit place to-morrow ; 
and he is low, and feels it dull over the livery stable-yard, and is 
distinctly aware of a dint in his heart, made by the most adorable 
of the adorable bridesmaids. For, the poor little harmless gentle- 
man once had his fancy, like the rest of us, and she didn't answer 
(as she often does not), and he thinks the adorable bridesmaid is 
like the fancy as she was then (which she is not at all), and that 
if the fancy had not married some one else for money, but had mar- 
ried him for love, he and she would have been happy (which they 
wouldn't have been), and that she has a tenderness for him still 
(whereas her toughness is a proverb). Brooding over the fire, with 
his dried little head in his dried little hands, and his dried little 
elbows on his dried little knees, Twemlow is melancholy. "No 
Adorable to bear me company here ! " thinks he. " No Adorable 
at the club ! A waste, a waste, a waste, my Twemlow ! " And 
so drops asleep, and has galvanic starts all over him. 

Betimes next morning, that horrible old Lady Tippins (relict of 
the late Sir Thomas Tippins, knighted in mistake for somebody 
else by His Majesty King George the Third, who, while perform- 
ing the ceremony, was graciously pleased to observe, "What, 
what, what ? Who, who, who ? Why, why, why ? ") begins to be 
dyed and varnished for the interesting occasion. She has a reputa- 
tion for giving smart accounts of things, and she must be at these 
people's early, my dear, to lose nothing of the fun. Whereabout 
in the bonnet and drapery announced by her name, any fragment 
of the real woman may be concealed, is perhaps known to her 
maid ; but you could easily buy all you see of her, in Bond Street : 
or you might scalp her, and peel her, and scrape her, and make 
two Lady Tippinses out of her, and yet not penetrate to the genu- 
ine article. She has a large gold eye-glass, has Lady Tippins, to 
survey the proceedings with. If she had one in each eye, it might 
keep that other drooping lid up, and look more uniform. But 
perennial youth is in her artificial flowers, and her list of lovers is 
fuU. 



112 OUE MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Mortimer, you wretch," says Lady Tippins, turning the eye- 
ghiss about and about, " where is your charge, the bridegroom 1 " 

"Give you my honour," returns Mortimer, "I don't know, and 
I don't care." 

" Miserable ! Is that the way you do your duty ? " 

" Beyond an impression that he is to sit upon my knee and be 
seconded at some point of the solemnities, like a principal at a 
prize-fight, I assure you I have no notion what my duty is," returns 
Mortimer. 

Eugene is also in attendance, with a pervading air upon him of 
having presupposed the ceremony to be a funeral, and of being dis- 
appointed. The scene is the Vestry-room of St. James's Church, 
with a number of leathery old registers on shelves, that might be 
bound in Lady Tippinses. 

But, hark ! A carriage at the gate, and Mortimer's man arrives, 
looking rather like a spurious Mephistopheles and an unacknowl- 
edged member of that gentleman's family. Whom Lady Tippins, 
surveying through her eye-glass, considers a fine man, and quite a 
catch ; and of whom Mortimer remarks, in the lowest spirits, as he 
approaches, " I believe this is my fellow, confound him ! " More 
carriages at the gate, and lo, the rest of the characters. Whom 
Lady Tippins, standing on a cushion, surveying through the eye- 
glass, thus checks off: "Bride; five-and-forty if a day, thirty 
shillings a yard, veil fifteen pounds, pocket-handkerchief a present. 
Bridesmaids ; kept down for fear of outshining bride, consequently 
not girls, twelve and sixpence a yard, Veneering's flowers, snub- 
nosed one rather pretty but too conscious of her stockings, bonnets 
three pound ten. Twemlow ; blessed release for the dear man if 
she really was his daughter, nervous even under the pretence that 
she is, well he may be. Mrs. Veneering ; never saw such velvet, 
say two thousand pounds as she stands, absolute jeweller's window, 
father must have been a pawnbroker, or how could these people do 
it? Attendant unknowns ; pokey." 

Ceremony performed, register signed. Lady Tippins escorted out 
of sacred edifice by Veneering, carriages rolling back to Stucconia, 
servants with favours and flowers, Veneering's house reached, 
drawing-rooms most magnificent. Here, the Podsnaps await the 
happy party ; Mr. Podsnap, with his hair-brushes made the most 
of; that imperial rocking-horse, Mrs. Podsnap, majestically skit- 
tish. Here, too, are Boots and Brewer, and the two other Buffers ; 
each Buffer with a flower in his button-hole, his hair curled, and 
his gloves buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared, if anything 
had happened to the bridegroom, to be married instantly. Here, 
too, the bride's aunt, and next relation; a widowed female of a 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 113 

Medusa sort, in a stony cap, glaring petrifaction at her fellow- 
creatures. Here, too, the bride's trustee ; an oilcake-fed style of 
business-gentleman with mooney spectacles, and an object of much 
interest. Veneering launching himself upon this trustee as his 
oldest friend (which makes seven, Twemlow thought), and confi- 
dentially retiring with him into the conservatory, it is understood 
that Veneering is his co-trustee, and that they are arranging about 
the fortune. Buffers are even overheard to whisper Thir-ty Thou- 
sand Pou-nds ! with a smack and a relish suggestive of the very 
finest oysters. Pokey unknowns, amazed to find how intimately 
they know Veneering, pluck up spirit, fold their arms, and begin 
to contradict him before breakfast. What time Mrs. Veneering, 
carrying baby dressed as a bridesmaid, flits about among the com- 
pany, emitting flashes of many-coloured lightning from diamonds, 
emeralds, and rubies. 

The Analytical, in course of time achieving what he feels to be 
due to himself in bringing to a dignified conclusion several quarrels 
he has on hand with the pastrycook's men, announces breakfast. 
Dining-room no less magnificent than drawing-room; tables su- 
perb ; all the camels out, and all laden. Splendid cake, covered 
with Cupids, silver, and true-lovers' knots. Splendid bracelet, pro- 
duced by Veneering before going down, and clasped upon the arm 
of bride. Yet nobody seems to think much more of the Veneer- 
ings than if they were a tolerable landlord and landlady doing the 
thing in the way of business at so much a head. The bride and 
bridegroom talk and laugh apart, as has always been their manner ; 
and the Buffers work their way through the dishes with systematic 
perseverance, as has always been their manner; and the pokey 
unknowns are exceedingly benevolent to one another in invitations 
to take glasses of champagne; but Mrs. Podsnap, arching her 
mane and rocking her grandest, has a far more deferential audience 
than Mrs. Veneering ; and Podsnap all but does the honours. 

Another dismal circumstance is, that Veneering, having the cap- 
tivating Tippins on one side of him and the bride's aunt on the 
other, finds it immensely difficult to keep the peace. For, Medusa, 
besides unmistakingly glaring petrifaction at the fascinating Tip- 
pins, follows every lively remark made by that dear creature with 
an audible snort : which may be referable to a chronic cold in the 
head, but may also be referable to indignation and contempt. And 
this snort being regular in its reproduction, at length comes to be 
expected by the company, who make embarrassing pauses when it is 
falling due, and by waiting for it, render it more emphatic when it 
comes. The stony aunt has likewise an injurious way of rejecting 
all dishes whereof Lady Tippins partakes : saying aloud when they 



114 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

are proffered to her, "No, no, no, not for me. Take it away!" 
As with a set purpose of implying a misgiving that if nourished 
upon similar meats she might come to be like that charmer, which 
would be a fatal consummation. Aware of her enemy, Lady Tippins 
tries a youthful sally or two, and tries the eye-glass ; but, from the 
impenetrable cap and snorting armour of the stony aunt all weapons 
rebound powerless. 

Another objectionable circumstance is, that the pokey unknowns 
support each other in being unimpressible. They persist in not 
being frightened by the gold and silver camels, and they are banded 
together to defy the elaborately chased ice-pails. They even seem 
to unite in some vague utterance of the sentiment that the land- 
lord and landlady will make a pretty good profit out of this, and 
they almost carry themselves like customers. Nor is there com- 
pensating influence in the adorable bridesmaids; for, having very 
little interest in the bride, and none at all in one another, those 
lovely beings become, each one on her own account, depreciatingly 
contemplative of the millinery present. While the bridegroom's 
man, exhausted, in the back of his chair, appears to be improving 
the occasion by penitentially contemplating all the wrong he has 
ever done ; the difference between him and his friend Eugene being, 
that the latter, in the back of his chair, appears to be contemplating 
all the wrong he would like to do — particularly to the present 
company. 

In which state of affairs, the usual ceremonies rather droop and 
flag, and the splendid cake when cut by the fair hand of the bride 
has but an indigestible appearance. However, all the things in- 
dispensable to be said are said, and all the things indispensable to 
be done are done (including Lady Tippins's yawning, falling asleep, 
and w^aking insensible), and there is hurried preparation for the 
nuptial journey to the Isle of Wight, and the outer air teems with 
brass bands and spectators. In full sight of whom, the malignant 
star of the Analytical has pre-ordained that pain and ridicule shall 
befall him. For he, standing on the door-steps to grace the de- 
parture, is suddenly caught a most prodigious thump on the side 
of his head with a heavy shoe, which a Buffer in the hall, champagne- 
flushed and wild of aim, has borrowed on the spur of the moment 
from the pastrycook's porter, to cast after the departing pair as an 
auspicious omen. 

So they all go up again into the gorgeous drawing-rooms — all of 
them flushed with breakfast, as having taken scarlatina sociably — 
and there the combined unknowns do malignant things with their 
legs to ottomans, and take as much as possible out of the splendid 
furniture. And so. Lady Tippins, quite undetermined whether to- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 115 

day is the day before yesterday, or the day after to-morrow, or the 
week after next, fades away ; and Mortimer Lightwood and Eugene 
fade away, and Twemlow fades away, and the stony aunt goes 
away — she declines to fade, proving rock to the last — and even 
the unknowns are slowly strained off, and it is all over. 

All over, that is to say, for the time being. But, there is an- 
other time to come, and it comes in about a fortnight, and it comes 
to Mr. and Mrs. Lammle on the sands at Shanklin, in the Isle of 
Wight. 

Mr. and Mrs. Lammle have walked for some time on the Shank- 
lin sands, and one may see by their footprints that they have not 
walked arm in arm, and that they have not walked in a straight 
track, and that they have walked in a moody humour ; for, the lady 
has prodded little spirting holes in the damp sand before her with 
her parasol, and the gentleman has trailed his stick after him. As 
if he were of the Mephistopheles family indeed, and had walked 
with a drooping tail, 

"Do you mean to tell me, then, Sophronia " 

Thus he begins after a long silence, when Sophronia flashes 
fiercely, and turns upon him. 

" Don't put it upon me, sir. I ask you, do you mean to tell me ? " 

Mr. Lammle falls silent again, and they walk as before. Mrs. 
Lammle opens her nostrils and bites her under-lip ; Mr. Lammle 
takes his gingerous whiskers in his left hand, and bringing them to- 
gether, frowns furtively at his beloved, out of a thick gingerous bush. 

" Do / mean to say ! " Mrs. Lammle after a time repeats, with 
indignation. " Putting it on me ! The unmanly disingenuousness ! " 

Mr. Lammle stops, releases his whiskers, and looks at her. " The 
what?" 

Mrs. Lammle haughtily replies, without stopping, and without 
looking back. " The meanness." 

He is at her side again in a pace or two, and he retorts, " That 
is not what you said. You said disingenuousness." 

"What if I did?" 

" There is no 'if in the case. You did." 

" I did, then. And what of it ? " 

" What of it? " says Mr. Lammle. " Have you the face to utter 
the word to me ? " 

" The face, too ! " replied Mrs. Lammle, staring at him with cold 
scorn. " Pray, how dare you, sir, utter the word to me ? " 

"I never did." 

As this happens to be true, Mrs. Lammle is thrown on the 
feminine resource of saying, " I don't care what you uttered or did 
not utter." 







fCillE 






OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 117 

After a little more walking and a little more silence, Mr. Lammle 
breaks the latter. 

' ' You shall proceed in your own way. You claim a right to ask 
me do I mean to tell you. Do I mean to tell you what ? " 

" That you are a man of property ? " 

" No." 

" Then you married me on false pretences ? " 

" So be it. Next comes what you mean to say. Do you mean 
to say you are a woman of property ? " 

"No." 

'' Then you married me on false pretences." 

" If you were so dull a fortune-hunter that you deceived yourself, 
or if you were so greedy and grasping that you were over-willing to be 
deceived by appearances, is it my fault, you adventurer ? " the lady 
demands, with great asperity. 

"I asked Yeneering, and he told me you were rich." 

" Veneering ! " with great contempt. " And what does Veneering 
know about me ? " 

" Was he not your trustee ? " 

" No. I have no trustee, but the one you saw on the day when 
you fraudulently married me. And his trust is not a very difficult 
one, for it is only an annuity of a hundred and fifteen pounds. I 
think there are some odd shillings or pence, if you are very par- 
ticular." 

Mr. Laramie bestows a by no means loving look upon the partner 
of his joys and sorrows, and he mutters something; but checks 
himself. 

" Question for question. It is my turn again, Mrs. Lammle. 
What made you suppose me a man of property ? " 

" You made me suppose you so. Perhaps you will deny that you 
always presented yourself to me in that character 1 " 

" But you asked somebody, too. Come, Mrs. Lammle, admission 
for admission. You asked somebody ? " 

" I asked Veneering." 

"And Veneering knew as much of me as he knew of you, or as 
anybody knows of him." 

After more silent walking, the bride stops short, to say in a 
passionate manner : 

" I never will forgive the Veneerings for this ! " 

"Neither will I," returns the bridegroom. 

With that, they walk again ; she, making those angry spirts in 
the sand, he, dragging that dejected tail. The tide is low, and seems 
to have thrown them together high on the bare shore. A gull comes 
sweeping by their heads, and flouts them. There was a golden 



118 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

surface on the brown cliffs but now, and behold they are only damp 
earth. A taunting roar comes from the sea, and the far-out rollers 
mount upon one another, to look at the entrapped impostors, and 
to join in impish and exultant gambols. 

"Do you pretend to believe," Mrs. Lammle resumes, sternly, 
" when you talk of my marrying you for worldly advantages, that 
it was within the bounds of reasonable probability that I would 
have married you for yourself?" 

" Again there are two sides to the question, Mrs. Lammle. What 
do you pretend to believe ? " 

" So you first deceive me and then insult me ! " cries the lady, 
with a heaving bosom. 

" Not at all. I have originated nothing. The double-edged 
question was yours." 

" Was mine ! " the bride repeats, and her parasol breaks in her 
angry hand. 

His colour has turned to a livid white, and ominous marks have 
come to light about his nose, as if the finger of the very devil himself 
had, within the last few moments, touched it here and there. But 
he has repressive power, and she has none. 

" Throw it away," he coolly recommends as to the parasol ; " you 
have made it useless ; you look ridiculous with it." 

Whereupon she calls him in her rage, " a deliberate villain," and 
so casts the broken thing from her as that it strikes him in falling. 
The finger-marks are something whiter for the instant, but he walks 
on at her side. 

She bursts into tears, declaring herself the wretchedest, the most 
deceived, the worst-used of women. Then she says that if she had 
the courage to kill herself, she would do it. Then she calls him 
vile impostor. Then she asks him, why, in the disappointment of 
his base speculation, he does not take her life with his own hand, 
under the present favourable circumstances. Then she cries again. 
Then she is enraged again, and makes some mention of swindlers. 
Finally, she sits down crying on a block of stone, and is in all the 
known and unknown humours of her sex at once. Pending her 
changes, those aforesaid marks in his face have come and gone, now 
here now there, like white stops of a pipe on which the diabolical 
performer has played a tune. Also his livid lips are parted at last, 
as if he were breathless with running. Yet he is not. 

"Now, get up, Mrs. Lammle, and let us speak reasonably." 

She sits upon her stone, and takes no heed of him. 

"Get up, I tell you." 

Raising her head, she looks contemptuously in his face, and repeats, 
" You tell me ! Tell me, forsooth ! " 



OUR 5IUTUAL FRIEND. 119 

She affects not to know that his eyes are fastened on her as she 
droops her head again ; but her whole figure reveals that she knows 
it uneasily. 

" Enough of this. Come ! Do you hear ? Get up ! " 

Yielding to his hand, she rises, and they walk again ; but this 
time with their faces turned towards their place of residence. 

" Mrs. Lammle, we have both been deceiving, and we have both 
been deceived. We have both been biting, and we have both been 
bitten. In a nut-shell, there's the state of the case." 

" You sought me out " 

" Tut ! Let us have done with that. We know very well how it 
was. Why should you and I talk about it, when you and I can't 
disguise it ? To proceed. I am disappointed and cut a poor figure." 

"Am I no one?" 

"Some one — and I was coming to you, if you had waited a 
moment. You, too, are disappointed and cut a poor figure." 

" An injured figure ! " 

" You are now cool enough, Sophronia, to see that you can't be in- 
jured without my being equally injured ; and that therefore the mere 
word is not to the purpose. When I look back, I wonder how I can 
have been such a fool as to take you to so great an extent upon trust." 

" And when I look back " the bride cries, interrupting. 

" And when you look back, you wonder how you can have been 
— you'll excuse the word 1 " 

"Most certainly, with so much reason." 

" — Such a fool as to take me to so great an extent upon trust. 
But the folly is committed on both sides. I cannot get rid of you ; 
you cannot get rid of me. What follows ? " 

" Shame and misery," the bride bitterly replies. 

" I don't know. A mutual understanding follows, and I think 
it may cany us through. Here I split my discourse (give me your 
arm, Sophronia) into three heads, to make it shorter and plainer. 
Firstly, it's enough to have been done, without the mortification of 
being known to have been done. So we agree to keep the fact to 
ourselves. You agree ? " 

" If it is possible, I do." 

" Possible ! We have pretended well enough to one another. 
Can't we, united, pretend to the world? Agreed. Secondly, we 
owe the Veneerings a grudge, and we owe all other people the grudge 
of wishing them to be taken in, as we ourselves have been taken in. 
Agreed?" 

"Yes. Agreed." 

"We come smoothly to thirdly. You have called me an adventurer, 
Sophronia. So I am. In plain uncomplimentary English, so I am. 



120 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

So are you, my dear. So are many people. We agree to keep our 
own secret, and to work together in furtherance of our own schemes." 

" What schemes ? " 

" Any scheme that will bring us money. By our own schemes, 
I mean our joint interest. Agreed 1 " 

She answers, after a little hesitation, " I suppose so. Agreed." 

" Carried at once, you see ! Now, Sophronia, only half-a-dozen 
words more. We know one another perfectly. Don't be tempted 
into twitting me with the past knowledge that you have of me, be- 
cause it is identical with the past knowledge that I have of you, and in 
twitting me, you twit yourself, and I don't want to hear you do it. 
With this good understanding established between us, it is better 
never done. To wind up all : — You have shown temper to-day, 
Sophronia. Don't be betrayed into doing so again, because I have 
a Devil of a temper myself." 

So, the happy pair, with this hopeful marriage contract thus signed, 
sealed, and delivered, repair homeward. If, when those infernal 
finger-marks were on the white and breathless countenance of Alfred 
Lammle, Esquire, they denoted that he conceived the purpose of 
subduing his dear wife Mrs. Alfred Lammle, by at once divesting 
her of any lingering reality or pretence of self-respect, the purpose 
would seem to have been presently executed. The mature young 
lady has mighty little need of powder, now, for her downcast face, 
as he escorts her in the light of the setting sun to their abode of 
bliss. 



CHAPTER XI. 

PODSNAPPERY. 

Mr. Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr. Pod- 
snap's opinion. Beginning with a good inheritance, he had married 
a good inheritance, and had thriven exceedingly in the Marine In- 
surance way, and was quite satisfied. He never could make out 
why everybody was not quite satisfied, and he felt conscious that he 
set a brilliant social example in being particularly well satisfied with 
most things, and, above all other things, with himself. 

Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr. 
Podsnap settled that whatever he put behind him he put out of 
existence. There was a dignified conclusiveness — not to add 
a grand con^nience — in this way of getting rid of disagreeables, 
which had done much towards establishing Mr. Podsnap in his 
lofty place in Mr. Podsnap's satisfaction. " I don't want to know 
about it : I don't choose to discuss it ; I don't admit it ! " Mr. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 121 

Podsnap had even acquired a peculiar flourish of his right arm in 
often clearing the world of its most diflBcult problems, by sweeping 
them behind him (and consequently sheer away) with those wordt 
and a flushed face. For they affi-onted him. 

Mr. Podsnap's world was not a very large world, morally ; no, nor 
even geographically : seeing that although his business was sustained 
upon commerce with other countries, he considered other countries, 
with that important reservation, a mistake, and of their manners 
and customs would conclusively observe, " Not English ! " when 
Presto ! with a flourish of the arm, and a flush of the face, they were 
swept away. Elsewise, the world got up at eight, shaved close at a 
quarter-past, breakfasted at nine, went to the City at ten, came home 
at half-past five, and dined at seven. Mr. Podsnap's notions of the 
Arts in their integrity might have been stated thus. Literature ; 
large print, respectively descriptive of getting up at eight, shaving 
close at a quarter-past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at 
ten, coming home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Painting 
and Sculpture ; models and portraits representing Professors of 
getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter-past, breakfasting at 
nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, and 
dining at seven. Music ; a respectable performance (without vari- 
ations) on stringed and wind instruments, sedately expressive of 
getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter-past, breakfasting 
at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, and 
dining at seven. Nothing else to be permitted to those same vagrants 
the Arts, on pain of excommunication. Nothing else To Be — • 
anywhere ! 

As a so eminently respectable man, Mr. Podsnap was sensible of 
its being required of him to take Providence under his protection. 
Consequently he always knew exactly what Providence meant. 
Inferior and less respectable men might fall short of that mark, but 
Mr. Podsnap was always up to it. And it was very remarkable (and 
must have been very comfortable) that what Providence meant, was 
invariably what Mr. Podsnap meant. 

These may be said to have been the articles of a faith and school 
which the present chapter takes the liberty of calling, after its rep- 
resentative man, Podsnappery. They were confined within close 
bounds, as Mr. Podsnap's own head was confined by his shirt-collar ; 
and they were enunciated with a sounding pomp that smacked of 
the creaking of Mr. Podsnap's own boots. 

There was a Miss Podsnap. And this young rocking-horse was 
being trained in her mother's art of prancing in a stately manner 
without ever getting on. But the high parental action was not yet 
imparted to her, and in truth she was but an under-sized damsel, 



122 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

with high shoulders, low spirits, chilled elbows, and a rasped sur- 
face of nose, who seemed to take occasional frosty peeps out of child- 
hood into womanhood, and to shrink back again, overcome by her 
mother's head-dress and her father from head to foot — crushed by 
the mere dead-weight of Podsnappery. 

A certain institution in Mr. Podsnap's mind which he called " the 
young person " may be considered to have been embodied in Miss 
Podsnap, his daughter. It was an inconvenient and exacting in- 
stitution, as requiring everything in the universe to be filed down 
and fitted to it. The question about everything was, would it bring 
a blush into the cheek of the young person ? And the inconvenience 
of the young person was, that, according to Mr. Podsnap, she seemed 
always liable to burst into blushes wliten there was no need at all. 
There appeared to be no line of demarcation between the young 
person's excessive innocence, and another person's guiltiest knowl- 
edge. Take Mr. Podsnap's word for it, and the soberest tints of 
drab, white, lilac, and grey, were all flaming red to this troublesome 
Bull of a young person. 

The Podsnaps lived in a shady angle adjoining Portman Square. 
They were a kind of people certain to dwell in the shade, wherever 
they dwelt. Miss Podsnap's life had been, from her first appearance 
on this planet, altogether of a shady order; for, Mr. Podsnap's 
young person was likely to get little good out of association with 
other young persons, and had therefore been restricted to compan- 
ionship with not very congenial older persons, and with massive 
furniture. Miss Podsnap's early views of life being principally de- 
rived from the reflections of it in her father's boots, and in the walnut 
and rosewood tables of the dim drawing-rooms, and in their swarthy 
giants of looking-glasses, were of a sombre cast ; and it was not 
wonderful that now, when she was on most days solemnly tooled 
through the Park by the side of her mother in a great tall custard- 
coloured phaeton, she showed above the apron of that vehicle like a 
dejected young person sitting up in bed to take a startled look at 
things in general, and very strongly desiring to get her head under 
the counterpane again. 

Said Mr. Podsnap to Mrs. Podsnap, "Georgiana is almost 
eighteen." 

Said Mrs. Podsnap to Mr. Podsnap, assenting, "Almost eighteen." 

Said Mr. Podsnap then to Mrs. Podsnap, "Really I think we 
should have some people on Georgiana's birthday." 

Said Mrs. Podsnap then to Mr. Podsnap, " Which will enable us 
to clear off* all those people who are due." 

So it came to pass that Mr. and Mrs. Podsnap requested the 
honour of the company of seventeen friends of their souls at dinner ; 



124 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

and that they substituted other friends of their souls for such of the 
seventeen original friends of their souls as deeply regretted that a 
prior engagement prevented their having the honour of dining with 
Mr. and Mrs. Podsnap, in pursuance of their kind invitation ; and 
that Mrs. Podsnap said of all these inconsolable personages, as she 
checked them off with a pencil in her list, " Asked, at any rate, and 
got rid of ; " and that they successfully disposed of a good many 
friends of their souls in this way, and felt their consciences much 
lightened. 

There were still other friends of their souls who were not entitled 
to be asked to dinner, but had a claim to be invited to come and take 
a haunch of mutton vapour-bath at half-past nine. For the clearing 
off of these worthies, Mrs. Podsnap added a small and early evening 
to the dinner, and looked in at the music-shop to bespeak a well- 
conducted automaton to come and play quadrilles for a carpet dance. 

Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, and Mr. and Mrs. Veneering's bran-new 
bride and bridegroom, were of the dinner company ; but the Podsnap 
establishment had nothing else in common with the Veneerings. 
Mr. Podsnap could tolerate taste in a mushroom man who stood in 
need of that sort of thing, but was far above it himself. Hideous 
solidity was the characteristic of the Podsnap plate. Everything 
was made to look as heavy as it could, and to take up as much room 
as possible. Everything said boastfully, " Here you have as much 
of me in my ugliness as if I were only lead ; but I am so many 
ounces of precious metal worth so much an ounce ; — wouldn't you 
like to melt me down ? " A corpulent straddling epergne, blotched 
all over as if it had broken out in an eruption rather than been 
ornamented, delivered this address from an unsightly silver plat- 
form in the centre of the table. Four silver wine-coolers, each 
furnished with four staring heads, each head obtrusively carrying a 
big silver ring in each of its ears, conveyed the sentiment up and 
down the table, and handed it on to the pot-bellied silver salt-cellars. 
All the big silver spoons and forks widened the mouths of the com- 
pany expressly for the purpose of thrusting the sentiment down their 
throats with every morsel they ate. 

The majority of the guests were like the plate, and included 
several heavy articles weighing ever so much. But there was a 
foreign gentleman among them : whom Mr. Podsnap had invited 
after much debate with himself — believing the whole European 
continent to be in mortal alliance against the young person - — and 
there was a droll disposition, not only on the part of Mr. Podsnap, 
but of everybody else, to treat him as if he were a child who w^as 
hard of hearing. 

As a delicate concession to this unfortunately-born foreigner, Mr. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 125 

Podsnap, in receiving him, had presented his wife as " Madame 
Podsnap;" also his daughter as "Mademoiselle Podsnap," with 
some inclination to add "ma fiUe," in which bold venture, however, 
he checked himself. The Veneerings being at that time the only 
other arrivals, he had added (in a condescendingly explanatory man- 
ner), "Monsieur Vey-nair-reeng," and had then subsided into English. 

" How Do You Like London ? " Mr. Podsnap now inquired from 
his station of host, as if lie were administering something in the 
nature of a powder or potion to the deaf child ; " London, Londres, 
London 1 " 

The foreign gentleman admired it. 

"You find it Very Large ?" said Mr. PodsnajD, spaciously. 

The foreign gentleman found it very large. 

"And Very Rich?" 

The foreign gentleman found it, without doubt, enormdment riche. 

" Enormously Rich, We say," returned Mr. Podsnap, in a con- 
descending manner. "Our English adverbs do Not terminate in 
Mong, and We Pronounce the ' ch ' as if there were a ' t ' before it. 
We Say Ritch." 

"Reetch," remarked the foreign gentleman. 

"And Do You Find, Sir," pursued Mr. Podsnap, with dignity, 
" Many Evidences that Strike You, of our British Constitution in 
the Streets Of The World's Metropolis, London, Londres, London ? " 

The foreign gentleman begged to be pardoned, but did not al- 
together understand. 

"The Constitution Britannique," Mr. Podsnap explained, as if 
he were teaching in an infant school. "We Say British, But You 
Say Britannique, You Know " (forgivingly, as if that were not his 
fault). " The Constitution, Sir." 

The foreign gentleman said, " Mais, yees ; I know eem." 

A youngish sallowish gentleman in spectacles, with a lumpy fore- 
head, seated in a supplementary chair at a corner of the table, here 
caused a profound sensation by saying, in a raised voice, "Esker," 
and then stopping dead. 

" Mais oui, " said the foreign gentleman, turning towards him. 
" Est-ce que ? Quoi done ? " 

But the gentleman with the lumpy forehead having for the time 
delivered himself of all that he found behind his lumps, spake for 
the time no more. 

"I Was Inquiring," said Mr. Podsnap, resuming the thread of 
his discourse, " Whether You Have Observed in our Streets as We 
should say, Upon our Pavvy as You would say, any Tokens " 

The foreign gentleman with patient courtesy entreated pardon ; 
" But what was tokenz 1 " 



126 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Marks," said Mr. Podsiiap ; " Signs, you knoAV, Appearances 
— Traces." 

" Ah ! Of a Orse ? " inquired the foreign gentleman. 

" We call it Horse," said Mr. Podsnap, with forbearance. " In 
England, Angleterre, England, We Aspirate the ' H,' and We Say 
' Horse.' Only our Lower Classes Say ' Orse ! ' " 

" Pardon," said the foreign gentleman ; " I am alwiz wrong ! " 

"Our Language," said Mr, Podsnap, with a gracious conscious- 
ness of being always right, "is Difficult. Ours is a Copious Lau- 
^ " guage, and Trying to Strangers. I will not Pursue my Question." 

But the lumpy gentleman, unwilling to give it up, again madly 
said, "EsKER," and again spake no more. 

" It merely referred," Mr. Podsnap explained, with a sense of 
meritorious proprietorship, " to Our Constitution, Sir. We English- 
men are Very Proud of our Constitution, Sir. It Was Bestowed 
Upon Us By Providence. No Other Country is so Favoured as 
This Country." 

"And ozer countries? — " the foreign gentleman was beginning, 
when Mr. Podsnap put him right again. 

"We do not say Ozer; we say Other: the letters are'T' and 
' H ; ' you say Tay and Aish, You Know ; " (still with clemency). 
"The sound is 'th'— 'th!'" 

"And other countries," said the foreign gentleman. "They do 
how?" 

"They do. Sir," returned Mr. Podsnap, gravely shaking his 
head ; " they do — I am sorry to be obliged to say it — as they 
do." 

" It was a little particular of Providence," said the foreign 
gentleman, laughing ; " for the frontier is not large." 

"Undoubtedly," assented Mr. Podsnap; "But So it is. It was 
the Charter of the Land. This Island was Blest, Sir, to the Direct 
Exclusion of such Other Countries as — as there may happen to be. 
And if we were all Englishmen present, I would say," added Mr. 
Podsnap, looking around upon his compatriots, and sounding 
solemnly with his theme, " that there is in the Englishman a com- 
bination of qualities, a modesty, an independence, a responsibility, a 
repose, combined with an absence of everything calculated to call a 
blush into the cheek of a young person, which one w^ould seek in 
vain among the Nations of the Earth." 

Having delivered this little summary, Mr. Podsnap's face flushed, 
as he thought of the remote possibility of its being at all qualified 
by any prejudiced citizen of any other country ; and, with his favour- 
ite right-arm flourish, he put the rest of Europe and the whole of 
Asia, Africa, and America nowhere. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 127 

The audience were much edified by this passage of words ; and 
Mr. Podsnap, feeling that he was in rather remarkable force to-day, 
became smiling and conversational. 

"Has anything more been heard, Veneering," he inquired, "of 
the lucky legatee 1 " 

" Nothing more," returned Veneering, " than that he has come 
into possession of the property. I am told people now call him 
The Golden Dustman. I mentioned to you some time ago, I think, 
that the young lady whose intended husband was murdered is 
daughter to a clerk of mine ? " 

"Yes, you told me that," said Podsnap; "and by-the-bye, I 
wish you would tell it again here, for it's a curious coincidence — 
curious that the first news of the discovery should have been 
brought straight to your table (when I was there), and curious that 
one of your people should have been so nearly interested in it. 
Just relate that, will you ? " 

Veneering was more than ready to do it, for he had prospered ex- 
ceedingly upon the Harmon Murder, and had turned the social dis- 
tinction it conferred upon him to the account of making several 
dozen of bran-new bosom-friends. Indeed, such another lucky hit 
would almost have set him up in that way to his satisfaction. So, 
addressing himself to the most desirable of his neighbours, while Mrs. 
Veneering secured the next most desirable, he plunged into the case, 
and emerged from it twenty minutes afterwards with a Bank Director 
in his arms. In the mean time, Mrs. Veneering had dived into the 
same waters for a wealthy Ship-Broker, and had brought him up, safe 
and sound, by the hair. Then Mrs. Veneering had to relate, to a 
larger circle, how she had been to see the girl, and how she was 
really pretty, and (considering her station) presentable. And this 
she did with such a successful display of her eight aquiline fingers 
and their encircling jewels, that she happily laid hold of a drifting 
General Officer, his wife and daughter, and not only restored their 
animation which had become suspended, but made them lively 
friends within an hour. 

Although Mr. Podsnap would in a general way have highly dis- 
approved of Bodies in rivers as ineligible topics with reference to the 
cheek of the young person, he had, as one may say, a share in this 
affair which made him a part proprietor. As its returns were im- 
mediate, too, in the way of restraining the company from speechless 
contemplation of the wine-coolers, it paid, and he was satisfied. 

And now the haunch of mutton vapour-bath having received a 
gamey infusion, and a few last touches of sweets and coff'ee, was 
quite ready, and the bathers came ; but not before the discreet au- 
tomaton had got behind the bars of the piano music-desk, and there 



128 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

presented the appearance of a captive languishing in a rosewood jail. 
And who now so pleasant or so well assorted as Mr. and Mrs. Alfred 
Lammle, he all sparkle, she all gracious contentment, both at oc- 
casional intervals exchanging looks like partners at cards, who 
played a game against All England. 

There was not much youth among the bathers, but there was no 
youth (the young person always excepted) in the articles of Pod- 
snappery. Bald bathers folded their arms and talked to Mr. Pod- 
snap on the hearthrug ; sleek- whiskered bathers, with hats in their 
hands, lunged at Mrs. Podsnap and retreated; prowUng bathers 
went about looking into ornamental boxes and bowls as if they had 
suspicions of larceny on the part of the Podsnaps, and expected to 
find something they had lost at the bottom ; bathers of the gentler 
sex sat silently comparing ivory shoulders. All this time and al- 
ways, poor little Miss Podsnap, whose tiny efforts (if she had made 
any) were swallowed up in the magnificence of her mother's rocking, 
kept herself as much out of sight and mind as she could, and appeared 
to be counting on many dismal returns of the day. It was somehow 
understood, as a secret article in the state proprieties of Podsnappery, 
that nothing must be said about the day. Consequently this young 
damsel's nativity was hushed up and looked over, as if it were agreed 
on all hands that it would have been better that she had never been 
born. 

The Lammles were so fond of the dear Veneerings that they could 
not for some time detach themselves from those excellent friends ; 
but at length, either a very open smile on Mr. Lammle's part, or a 
very secret elevation of one of his gingerous eyebrows — certainly the 
one or the other — seemed to say to Mrs. Lammle, " Why don't you 
play?" And so, looking about her, she saw Miss Podsnap, and 
seeming to say responsively, " That card 1 " and to be answered 
"Yes," went and sat beside Miss Podsnap. 

Mrs. Lammle was overjoyed to escape into a corner for a little 
quiet talk. 

It promised to be a very quiet talk, for Miss Podsnap replied in a 
flutter, " Oh ! Indeed, it's very kind of you, but I am afraid I don't 
talk." 

"Let us make a beginning," said the insinuating Mrs. Lammle, 
with her best smile. 

" Oh ! I am afraid you'll find me very dull. But Ma talks ! " 
— That was plainly to be seen, for Ma was talking then at her usual 
canter, with arched head and mane, opened eyes and nostrils. 

" Fond of reading perhaps ? " 

" Yes. At least I — don't mind that so much," returned Miss 
Podsnap. 



OUH MUTUAL FRIEND. 129 

"M — m — m — m — music." So insinuating was Mrs. Lammle 
that she got half-a-dozen ms into the word before she got it 
out. 

" I haven't nerve to play even if I could. Ma plays." 

(At exactly the same canter, and with a certain flourishing ap- 
pearance of doing something, Ma did, in fact, occasionally take a 
rock upon the instrument.) 

" Of course you like dancing? " 

" Oh no, I don't," said Miss Podsnap, 

"No? With your youth and attractions? Truly, my dear, 
you surprise me ! " 

"I can't say," observed Miss Podsnap, after hesitating con- 
siderably, and stealing several timid looks at Mrs. Lammle's care- 
fully arranged face, *'how I might have liked it if I had been a — 
you won't mention it, ivill you ? " 

" My dear ! Never ! " 

" No, I am sure you won't. I can't say then how I should have 
liked it, if I had been a chimney-sweep on May-day." 

" Gracious ! " was the exclamation which amazement elicited from 
Mrs. Lammle. 

" There ! I knew you'd wonder. But you won't mention it, will 



you 



?" 



Upon my word, my love," said Mrs. Lammle, "you make me 
ten times more desirous, now I talk to you, to know you well, than 
I was when I sat over yonder looking at you. How I wish we 
could be real friends ! Try me as a real friend. Come ! Don't 
fancy me a frumpy old married woman, my dear ; I was married 
but the other day, you know ; I am dressed as a bride now, you see. 
About the chimney-sweeps ? " 

"Hush! Ma'llhear." 

" She can't hear from where she sits." 

" Don't you be too sure of that," said Miss Podsnap, in a lower 
voice. "Well, what I mean is, that they seem to enjoy it." 

" And that perhaps you would have enjoyed it, if you had been 
one of them ? " 

Miss Podsnap nodded significantly. 

" Then you don't enjoy it now ? " 

" How is it possible ? " said Miss Podsnap. " Oh, it is such a 
dreadful thing ! If I was wicked enough — and strong enough — 
to kill anybody, it should be my partner." 

This was such an entirely new view of the Terpsichorean art as 
socially practised, that Mrs. Lammle looked at her young friend in 
some astonishment. Her young friend sat nervously twiddling 
her fingers in a pinioned attitude, as if she were trying to hide her 



130 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

elbows. But this latter Utopian object (in short sleeves) always 
appeared to be the great inoffensive aim of her existence. 

*'It sounds horrid, don't it?" said Miss Podsnap, with a peni- 
tential face. 

Mrs. Lammle, not very well knowing what to answer, resolved 
herself into a look of smiling encouragement. 

*' But it is, and it always has been," pursued Miss Podsnap, " such 
a trial to me ! I so dread being awful. And it is so awful ! No 
one knows what I suffered at Madame Sauteuse's, where I learnt 
to dance and make presentation-curtseys, and other dreadful things 
— or at least where they tried to teach me. Ma can do it." 

"At any rate, my love," said Mrs. Lammle, soothingly, " that's 
over." 

"Yes, it's over," returned Miss Podsnap, "but there's nothing 
gained by that. It's worse here than at Madame Sauteuse's. Ma 
was there, and Ma's here ; but Pa wasn't there, and company wasn't 
there, and there were not real partners there. Oh, there's Ma speak- 
ing to the man at the piano ! Oh, there's Ma going up to somebody ! 
Oh, I know she's going to bring him to me ! Oh, please don't, please 
don't, please don't ! Oh, keep away, keep away, keep away ! " 
These pious ejaculations Miss Podsnap uttered with her eyes closed, 
and her head leaning back against the wall. 

But the Ogre advanced under the pilotage of Ma, and Ma said, 
"Georgiana, Mr. Grompus," and the Ogre clutched his victim and 
bore her off to his castle in the top couple. Then the discreet au- 
tomaton who had surveyed his ground, played a blossomless tune- 
less "set," and sixteen disciples of Podsnappery went through the 
figures of — 1, Getting up at eight and shaving close at a quarter- 
past — 2, Breakfasting at nine — 3, Going to the City at ten — 
4, Coming home at half-past five — 5, Dining at seven, and the 
grand chain. 

While these solemnities were in progress, Mr. Alfred Lammle 
(most loving of husbands) approached the chair of Mrs. Alfred 
Lammle (most loving of wives), and bending over the back of it, 
trifled for some few seconds with Mrs. Lammle's bracelet. Slightly 
in contrast with this brief airy toying, one might have noticed 
a certain dark attention in Mrs. Lammle's face as she said some 
words with her eyes on Mr. Lammle's waistcoat, and seemed in re- 
turn to receive some lesson. But it was all done as a breath passes 
from a mirror. 

And now, the grand chain riveted to the last link, the discreet 
automaton ceased, and the sixteen, two and two, took a walk among 
the furniture. And herein the unconsciousness of the Ogre Grompus 
was pleasantly conspicuous ; for, that complacent monster, believing 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 131 

that he was giving Miss Podsnap a treat, prolonged to the utmost 
stretch of possibility a peripatetic account of an archery meeting ; 
while his victim, heading the procession of sixteen as it slowly circled 
about, like a revolving funeral, never raised her eyes except once to 
steal a glance at Mrs. Lammle, expressive of intense despair. 

At length the procession was dissolved by the violent arrival of 
a nutmeg, before which the drawing-room door bounced ojDen, as if 
it were a cannon-ball; and while that fragrant article, dispersed 
through several glasses of coloured warm water, was going the round 
of society. Miss Podsnap returned to her seat by her new friend. 

" Oh, my goodness," said Miss Podsnap. " That's over ! I hope 
you didn't look at me," 

" My dear, why not 1 " 

"Oh, I know all about myself," said Miss Podsnap. 

"I'll tell you something / know about you, my dear," returned 
Mrs. Lammle in her winning way, "and that is, you are most 
unnecessarily shy." 

" Ma ain't," said Miss Podsnap. " — I detest you ! Go along ! " 
This shot was levelled under her breath at the gallant Grompus for 
bestowing an insinuating smile upon her in passing. 

"Pardon me if I scarcely see, ray dear Miss Podsnap," Mrs. 
Lammle was beginning when the young lady interposed. 

" If we are going to be real friends (and I suppose we are, for you 
are the only person who ever proposed it) don't let us be awful. It's 
awful enough to he Miss Podsnap, without being called so. Call 
me Georgiana." 

"Dearest Georgiana " Mrs. Lammle began again. 

"Thank you," said Miss Podsnap. 

"Dearest Georgiana, pardon me if I scarcely see, my love, why 
your mamma's not being shy is a reason why you should be." 

" Don't you really see that 1 " asked Miss Podsnap, plucking at 
her fingers in a troubled manner, and furtively casting her eyes now 
on Mrs. Lammle, now on the ground. " Then perhaps it isn't 1 " 

" My dearest Georgiana, you defer much too readily to my poor 
opinion. Indeed it is not even an opinion, darling, for it is only a 
confession of my dulness." 

"Oh, you are not dull," returned Miss Podsnap. "/ am dull, 
but you couldn't have made me talk if you were." 

Some little touch of conscience answering this perception of her 
having gained a purpose, called bloom enough into Mrs. Lammle's 
face to make it look brighter as she sat smiling her best smile on 
her dear Georgiana, and shaking her head with an affectionate play- 
fulness. Not that it meant anything, but that Georgiana seemed to 
like it. 



132 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"What I mean is," pursued Georgiana, "that Ma being so en- 
dowed with awfuiness, and Pa being so endowed with awfulness, 
and there being so much awfulness everywhere — I mean, at least, 
everywhere where I am — perhaps it makes me who am so deficient 
in awfulness, and frightened at it — I say it very badly — I don't 
know whether you can understand what I mean 1 " 

" Perfectly, dearest Georgiana ! " Mrs. Lammle was proceeding 
with every reassuring wile, when the head of that young lady 
suddenly went back against the wall again, and her eyes closed. 

" Oh ! there's Ma being awful with somebody with a glass in 
his eye ! Oh, I know she's going to bring him here ! Oh, don't 
bring him, don't bring him ! Oh, he'll be m^ partner with his glass 
in his eye ! Oh, what shall I do ! " This time Georgiana ac- 
companied her ejaculations with taps of her feet upon the floor, and 
was altogether in quite a desperate condition. But, there was no 
escape from the majestic Mrs. Podsnap's production of an ambling 
stranger, with one eye screwed up into extinction and the other 
framed and glazed, who, having looked down out of that organ, as 
if he descried Miss Podsnap at the bottom of some perpendicular 
shaft, brought her to the surface, and ambled off with her. And 
then the captive at the piano played another " set," expressive of 
his mournful aspirations after freedom, and other sixteen went 
through the former melancholy motions, and the ambler took Miss 
Podsnap for a furniture walk, as if he had struck out an entirely 
original conception. 

In the mean time a stray personage of a meek demeanour, who had 
wandered to the hearthrug and got among the heads of tribes as- 
sembled there in conference with Mr. Podsnap, eliminated Mr. Pod- 
snap's flush and flourish by a highly unpolite remark ; no less than 
a reference to the circumstance that some half-dozen people had 
lately died in the streets, of starvation. It was clearly ill-timed, 
after dinner. It was not adapted to the cheek of the young person. 
It was not in good taste. 

" I don't believe it," said Mr. Podsnap, putting it behind him. 

The meek man was afraid we must take it as proved, because 
there were the Inquests and the Registrar's returns. 

"Then it was their own fault," said Mr. Podsnap. 

Veneering and other elders of tribes commended this way out of 
it. At once a short cut and a broad road. 

The man of meek demeanour intimated that truly it would seem 
from the facts as if starvation had been forced upon the culprits in 
question — as if, in their wretched manner, they had made their 
weak protests against it — as if they would have taken tlie liberty 
of staving it off if they could — as if they would rather not 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 133 

have been starved upon the whole, if perfectly agreeable to all 
parties. 

" There is not," said Mr. Podsnap, flushing angrily, " there is not 
a country in the world, sir, where so noble a provision is made for 
the poor as in this country." 

The meek man was quite willing to concede that, but perhaps it 
rendered the matter even worse, as showing that there must be some- 
thing appallingly wrong somewhere. 

" Where ? " said Mr. Podsnap. 

The meek man hinted Wouldn't it be well to try, very seriously, 
to find out where ? 

" Ah ! " said Mr. Podsnap " Easy to say somewhere ; not so 
easy to say where ! But I see what you are driving at. I knew it 
from the first. Centralisation. No. Never with my consent. 
Not English." 

An approving murmur arose from the heads of tribes ; as saying, 
" There you have him ! Hold him ! " 

He was not aware (the meek man submitted of himself) that he 
was driving at any isation. He had no favourite isation that he 
knew of. But he certainly was more staggered by these terrible oc- 
currences than he was by names, of howsoever so many syllables. 
Might he ask, was dying of destitution and neglect necessarily 
English ? 

"You know what the population of London is, I suppose," said 
Mr. Podsnap. 

The meek man supposed he did, but supposed that had absolutely 
nothing to do with it, if its laws were well administered. 

"And you know ; at least I hope you know," said Mr. Podsnap, 
with severity, " that Providence has declared that you shall have 
the poor always with you ? " 

The meek man also hoped he knew that. 

"I am glad to hear it," said Mr. Podsnap, with a portentous air. 
" I am glad to hear it. It will render you cautious how you fly in 
the face of Providence." 

In reference to that absurd and irreverent conventional phrase, 
the meek man said, for which Mr. Podsnap was not responsible, he the 
meek man had no fear of doing anything so impossible ; but 

But Mr, Podsnap felt that the time had come for flushing and 
flourishing this meek man down for good. So he said : 

" I must decline to pursue this painful discussion. It is not 
pleasant to my feelings. It is repugnant to my feelings. I have 
said that I do not admit these things. I have also said that if 
they do occur (not that I admit it), the fault hes with the sufferers 
themselves. It is not for me" — Mr. Podsnap pointed "me" 



134 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

forcibly, as adding by implication though it may be all very well foi' 
you — "it is not for me to impugn the workings of Providence. I 
know better than that, I trust, and I have mentioned what the in- 
tentions of Providence are. Besides," said Mr. Podsnap, flushing 
high up among his hair-brushes, with a strong consciousness of per- 
sonal aftront, "the subject is a very disagreeable one. I will go so 
far as to say it is an odious one. It is not one to be introduced 

among our wives and young persons, and I " He finished with 

that flourish of his arm which added more expressively than any 
words, And I remove it from the face of the earth. 

Simultaneously with this quencliing of the meek man's ineffectual 
fire, Georgiana having left the ambler up a lane of sofa, in a No 
Thoroughfare of back drawing-room, to find his own way out, came 
back to Mrs. Lammle. And who should be with Mrs. Lammle, but 
Mr. Lammle. So fond of her ! 

" Alfred, my love, here is my friend. Georgiana, dearest girl, you 
must like my husband next to me." 

Mr. Lammle was proud to be so soon distinguished by this special 
commendation to Miss Podsnap's fiivour. But if Mr. Lammle were 
prone to be jealous of his dear Sophronia's friendships, he would be 
jealous of her feeling towards Miss Podsnap. 

" Say Georgiana, darling," interposed his wife. 

" Towards — shall 1% — Georgiana." Mr. Lammle uttered the 
name, with a delicate curve of his right hand, from liis lips outward. 
" For never have I known Sophronia (who is not apt to take sudden 

likings) so attracted and so captivated as she is by shall I once 

more % — - Georgiana." 

The object of this homage sat uneasily enough in receipt of it, 
and then said, turning to Mrs. Lammle, much embarrassed : 

" I wonder what you like me for ! I am sure I can't think." 

"Dearest Georgiana, for yourself. For your difference from all 
around you." 

" Well ! That may be. For I think I like you for your difference 
from all around me," said Georgiana with a smile of relief. 

"We must be going with the rest," observed Mrs. Lammle, rising 
with a show of unwillingness, amidst a general dispersal. " W"e are 
real friends, Georgiana dear." 

"Real." 

" Good night, dear girl ! " 

She had established an attraction over the shrinking nature upon 
which her smiling eyes were fixed, for Georgiana held her hand while 
she answered in a secret and half-frightened tone : 

"Don't forget me when you are gone away. And come again 
soon. Good night ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 135 

Charming to see Mr. and Mrs, Lammle taking leave so gracefully, 
and going down the stairs so lovingly and sweetly. Not quite so 
charming to see their smiling faces fall and brood as they dropped 
moodily into separate corners of their little carriage. But to be 
sure that was a sight behind the scenes, which nobody saw, and 
which nobody was meant to see. 

Certain big, heavy vehicles, built on the model of the Podsnap plate, 
took away the heavy articles of guests weighing ever so much ; and 
the less valuable articles got away after their various manners ; and 
the Podsnap plate was put to bed. As Mr. Podsnap stood with 
his back to the drawing-room fire, pulling up his shirt-collar, like a 
veritable cock of the walk literally pluming himself in the midst of 
his possessions, nothing would have astonished him more than an 
intimation that Miss Podsnap, or any other young person properly 
born and bred, could not be exactly put away like the plate, brought 
out like the plate, polished like the plate, counted, weighed, and 
valued like the plate. That such a young person could possibly have 
a morbid vacancy in the heart for anything younger than the plate, 
or less monotonous than the plate ; or that such a young person's 
thoughts could try to scale the region bounded on the north, south, 
east, and west, by the plate ; was a monstrous imagination which 
he would on the spot have flourished into space. This perhaps in 
some sort arose from Mr. Podsnap's blushing young person being, so 
to speak, all cheek : whereas there is a possibility that there may be 
young persons of a rather more complex organisation. 

If Mr. Podsnap, pulling up his shirt-collar, could only have 
heard himself called " that fellow " in a certain short dialogue 
which passed between Mr. and Mrs. Lammle in their opposite 
corners of their little carriage, rolling home ! 

" Sophronia, are you awake 1 " 

" Am I likely to be asleep, sir 1 " 

" Very likely, I should think, after that fellow's company. At- 
tend to what I am going to say." 

" I have attended to what you have already said, have I not 1 
What else have I been doing all night ? " 

" Attend, I tell you " (in a raised voice), " to what I am going to 
say. Keep close to that idiot girl. Keep her under your thumb. 
You have her fast, and you are not to let her go. Do you hear 1 " 

" I hear you." 

" I foresee there is money to be made out of this, besides taking 
that fellow down a peg. We owe each other money, you know\" 

Mrs. Lammle winced a little at the reminder, but only enough 
to shake her scents and essences anew into the atmosphere of the 
little carriage, as she settled herself afresh into her own dark corner. 



136 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN'S BROW. 

Mr. Mortimer Lightwood and Mr. Eugene Wrayburn took 
a coffee-house dinner together in Mr. Lightwood's office. They 
had newly agreed to set up a joint establishment together. They 
had taken a bachelor cottage near Hampton, on the brink of the 
Thames, with a lawn, and a boat-house, and all things fitting, and 
were to float with the stream through the summer and the Long 
Vacation. 

It was not summer yet, but spring ; and it was not gentle spring 
ethereally mild, as in Thomson's Seasons, but nipping spring with 
an easterly wind, as in Johnson's, Jackson's, Dickson's, Smith's, and 
Jones's Seasons. The grating wind sawed rather than blew ; and 
as it sawed, the sawdust whirled about the sawpit. Every street 
was a sawpit, and there were no top-sawyers ; every passenger was 
an under-sawyer, with the sawdust blinding him and choking him. 

That mysterious paper currency which circulates in London when 
the wind blows, gyrated here and there and everywhere. Whence 
can it come, whither can it go ? It hangs on every bush, flutters 
in every tree, is caught flying by the electric wires, haunts every 
enclosure, drinks at every pump, cowers at every grating, shudders 
upon every plot of grass, seeks rest in vain behind the legions of 
iron rails. In Paris, where nothing is wasted, costly and luxurious 
city though it be, but where wonderful human ants creep out of 
holes and pick up every scrap, there is no such thing. There, it 
blows nothing but dust. There, sharp eyes and sharp stomachs 
reap even the east wind, and get something out of it. 

The wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. The shrubs wrung 
their many hands, bqi;noa';ing that they had been over-persuaded 
by the sun to bud; tiu y^ung leaves pined ; the sparrows repented 
of their early marriages, like men and women ; the colours of the 
rainbow were discernible, not in floral spring, but in the faces of 
the people whom it nibbled and pinched. And ever the wind 
sawed, and the sawdust whirled. 

When the spring evenings are too long and light to shut out, 
and such weather is rife, the city which Mr. Podsnap so explana- 
torily called London, Londres, London, is at its worst. Such a 
black shrill city, combining the qualities of a smoky house and a 
scolding wife; such a gritty city; such a hopeless city, with no 
rent in the leaden canopy of its sky ; such a beleaguered city, in- 
vested by the great Marsh Forces of Essex and Kent. So the two 
old schoolfellows felt it to be, as, their dinner done, they turned 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 137 

towards the fire to smoke. Young Blight was gone, the coffee- 
house waiter was gone, the plates and dishes were gone, the wine 
was going — but not in the same direction. 

"The wind sounds up here," quoth Eugene, stirring the fire, 
"as if we were keeping a lighthouse. I wish we were." 

"Don't you think it would bore us ?" Lightwood asked. 

" Not more than any other place. And there would be no Cir- 
cuit to go. But that's a selfish consideration, personal to me." 

"And no clients to come," added Lightwood. "Not that that's 
a selfish consideration at all personal to me." 

"If we were on an isolated rock in a stormy sea," said Eugene, 
smoking with his eyes on the fire, " Lady Tippins couldn't put off 
to visit us, or, better still, might put off' and get swamped. Peo- 
ple couldn't ask one to wedding breakfasts. There would be no 
Precedents to hammer at, except the plain-sailing Precedent of 
keeping the light up. It would be exciting to look out .for 
wrecks." 

"But otherwise," suggested Lightwood, "there might be a de- 
gree of sameness in the life." 

"I have thought of that also," said Eugene, as if he really had 
been considering the subject in its various bearings with an eye to 
the business ; " but it would be a defined and limited monotony. 
It would not extend beyond two people. Now, it's a question with 
me, Mortimer, whether a monotony defined with that precision and 
limited to that extent might not be more endurable than the 
unlimited monotony of one's fellow-creatures." 

As Lightwood laughed and passed the wine, he remarked, " We 
shall have an opportunity, in our boating summer, of trying the 
question." 

" An imperfect one," Eugene acquiesced, with a sigh, " but so we 
shall. I hope we may not prove too mi. ^h f ^r one another." 

"Now, regarding your respected fathe., oaid Lightwood, bring- 
ing him to a subject they had expressly appointed to discuss : al- 
ways the most slippery eel of eels of subjects to lay hold of. 

" Yes, regarding my respected father," assented Eugene, settling 
himself in his arm-chair. " I would rather have approached my 
respected father by candlelight, as a theme requiring a little artifi- 
cial brilliancy ; but we will take him by twilight, enlivened with a 
glow of Wallsend." 

He stirred the fire again as he spoke, and having made it blaze, 
resumed. 

" My respected father has found, down in the parental neighbour- 
hood, a wife for his not-generally-respected son." 

" With some money, of course 1 " 



138 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"With some money, of course, or he would not have found her. 
My respected father — let me shorten the dutiful tautology by sub- 
stituting in future M. R. F., which sounds military, and rather like 
the Duke of Wellington." 

" What an absurd fellow you are, Eugene ! " 

"Not at all, I assure you. M. R. F. having always in the 
clearest manner provided (as he calls it) for his children by pre- 
arranging from the hour of the birth of each, and sometimes from 
an earlier period, what the devoted little victim's calling and course 
in life should be, M. R. F. pre-arranged for myself that I was to be 
the barrister I am (with the slight addition of an enormous practice, 
which has not accrued), and also the married man I am not." 

" The first you have often told me." 

" The first I have often told you. Considering myself sufiiciently 
incongruous on my legal eminence, I have until now suppressed my 
domestic destiny. You know M. R. F., but not as well as I do. 
If you knew him as well as I do, he would amuse you." 

" Fihally spoken, Eugene ! " 

" Perfectly so, believe me ; and with every sentiment of aff'ection- 
ate deference towards M. R. F. But if he amuses me, I can't help 
it. When my eldest brother was born, of course the rest of us 
knew (I mean the rest of us would have known, if we had been in 
existence) that he was heir to the Family Embarrassments — we 
call it before company the Family Estate. But when my second 
brother was going to be born by-and-bye, 'this,' says M. R. F., 'is 
a little pillar of the church.' Was born, and became a pillar of the 
church ; a very shaky one. My third brother appeared, consider- 
ably in advance of his engagement to my mother ; but M. R. F., not 
at all put out by surprise, instantly declared him a Circumnavi- 
gator. Was pitchforked into the Navy, but has not circumnavi- 
gated. I announced myself, and was disposed of with the highly 
satisfactory results embodied before you. When my younger brother 
was half an hour old, it was settled by M. R. F. that he should have 
a mechanical genius, and so on. Therefore I say that M. R. F. 
amuses me." 

" Touching the lady, Eugene ? " 

" There M. R. F. ceases to be amusing, because my intentions are 
opposed to touching the lady." 

" Do you know her ? " 

" Not in the least." 

" Hadn't you better see her ? " 

" My dear Mortimer, you have studied my character. Could I 
possibly go down there, labelled ' Eligible. On View,' and meet 
the lady, similarly labelled? Anything to cany out M. R. F.'s 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 139 

arrangements, I am sure, with the greatest pleasure — except 
matrimony. Could I possibly support if? I, so soon bored, so 
constantly, so fatally 1 " 

"But you are not a consistent fellow, Eugene." 

"In susceptibility to boredom," returned that worthy, "I assure 
you I am the most consistent of mankind." 

" Why, it was but now that you were dwelling on the advan- 
tages of a monotony of two." 

" In a lighthouse. Do me the justice to remember the condi- 
tion. In a lighthouse." 

Mortimer laughed again, and Eugene, having laughed too for the 
first ■ time, as if he found himself on reflection rather entertaining, 
relapsed into his usual gloom, and drowsily said, as he enjoyed his 
cigar, " No, there is no help for it ; one of the prophetic deliveries 
of M. R. F. must for ever remain unfulfilled. With every disposi- 
tion to oblige him, he must submit to a failure." 

It had grown darker as they talked, and the wind was sawing and 
the sawdust was whirling outside paler windows. The underlying 
churchyard was already settling into deep dim shade, and the shade 
was creeping up to the housetops among which they sat. "As if," 
said Eugene, "as if the churchyard ghosts were rising." 

He had walked to the window with his cigar in his mouth, to 
exalt its flavour by comparing the fireside with the outside, when he 
stopped midway on his return to his arm-chair, and said : 

" Apparently one of tlie ghosts has lost its way, and dropped in 
to be directed. Look at this phantom ! " 

Lightwood, whose back was towards the door, turned his head, 
and there, in the darkness of the entry, stood a something in the 
likeness of a man : to whom he addressed the not irrelevant inquiry, 
" Who the devil are you 1 " 

" I ask your pardons. Governors," replied the ghost, in a hoarse 
double-barrelled whisper, "but might either on you be Lawyer 
Lightwood ? " 

"What do you mean by not knocking at the door?" demanded 
Mortimer. 

"I ask your pardons. Governors," replied the ghost, as before, 
" but probable you was not aware your door stood open." 

" What do you want ? " 

Hereunto the ghost again hoarsely replied, in its double-barrelled 
manner, "I ask your pardons. Governors, but might one on you be 
Lawyer Lightwood ? " 

" One of us is," said the owner of that name. 

" All right. Governors Both," returned the ghost, carefully clos- 
ing the room door ; " 'tickler business." 



140 OUE MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Mortimer lighted the candles. They showed the visitor to be an 
ill-looking visitor with a squinting leer, who, as he spoke, fumbled 
at an old sodden fur cap, formless and mangey, that looked like a 
furry animal, dog or cat, puppy or kitten, drowned and decaying. 

"Now," said Mortimer, "what is it?" 

" Governors Both," returned the man, in what he meant to be a 
wheedling tone, " which on you might be Lawyer Light wood ? " 

"I am." 

"Lawyer Lightwood," ducking at him with a servile air, "I am 
a man as gets my living, and as seeks to get my living, by the sweat 
of my brow. Not to risk being done out of the sweat of my brow, 
by any chances, I should wish afore going further to be swore in." 

" I am not a swearer in of people, man." 

The visitor, clearly anything but reliant on this assurance, 
doggedly muttered "Alfred David." 

" Is that your name ? " asked Lightwood. 

"My name?" returned the man. "No; I want to take a 
Alfred David." 

(Which Eugene, smoking and contemplating him, interpreted as 
meaning Affidavit.) 

"I tell you, my good fellow," said Lightwood, with his indolent 
laugh, "that I have nothing to do with swearing." 

" He can swear at you," Eugene explained ; " and so can I. But 
we can't do more for you." 

Much discomfited by this information, the visitor turned the 
drowned dog or cat, puppy or kitten, about and about, and looked 
from one of the Governors Both to other of the Governors Both, 
while he deeply considered within himself. At length he decided : 

" Then I must be took down." 

" Where ? " asked Lightwood. 

" Here," said the man. " In pen and ink." 

" First, let us know what your business is about." 

"It's about," said the man, taking a step forward, dropping his 
hoarse voice, and shading it with his hand, " it's about from five to 
ten thousand pound reward. That's what it's about. It's about 
Murder. That's what it's about." 

" Come nearer the table. Sit down. Will you have a glass of 
wine ? " 

"Yes, I will," said the man; "and I don't deceive you. Govern- 
ors." 

It was given him. Making a stiff arm to the elbow, he poured 
the wine into his mouth, tilted it into his right cheek, as saying, 
"What do you think of it ? " tilted it into his left cheek, as saying, 
" What do you think of it ? " jerked it into his stomach, as say- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 141 

ing, " "What do you think of it ? " To conclude, smacked his lips, 
as if all three replied, " We think well of it." 

" Will you have another ? " 

" Yes, I will," he repeated, " and I don't deceive you. Governors." 
And also repeated the other proceedings. 

" Now," began Light wood, " what's your name % " 

"Why, there you're rather fast, Lawyer Lightwood," he replied, 
in a remonstrant manner. " Don't you see. Lawyer Lightwood ? 
There you're a little bit fast. I'm going to earn from five to ten 
thousand pound by the sweat of my brow ; and as a poor man doing 
justice to the sweat of my brow, is it likely I can afford to part 
with so much as my name without its being took down % " 

Deferring to the man's sense of the binding powers of pen and ink 
and paper, Lightwood nodded acceptance of Eugene's nodded proposal 
to take those spells in hand. Eugene, bringing them to the table, 
sat down as clerk or notary. 

" Now," said Lightwood, " what's your name % " 

But further precaution was still due to the sweat of this honest 
fellow's brow. 

" I should wish. Lawyer Lightwood," he stipulated, " to have that 
T'other Governor as my witness that what I said I said. Con- 
sequent, will the T'other Governor be so good as chuck me his name 
and where he lives % " 

Eugene, cigar in mouth and pen in hand, tossed him his card. 
After spelling it out slowly, the man made it into a little roll, and 
tied it up in an end of his neckerchief still more slowly. 

"Now," said Lightwood, for the third time, "if you have quite 
completed your various preparations, my friend, and have fully as- 
certained that your spirits are cool and not in any way hurried, 
what's your name % " 

" Roger Riderhood." 

"Dwelling-placer' 

"Lime'us Hole." 

" Calling or occupation ? " 

Not quite so glib with this answer as with the previous two, Mr. 
Riderhood gave in the definition, " Waterside character." 

"Anything against you?" Eugene quietly put in as he wrote. 

Rather baulked, Mr. Riderhood evasively remarked, with an in- 
nocent air, that he believed the T'other Governor had asked him 
summa't." 

" Ever in trouble % " said Eugene. 

"Once." (Might happen to any man, Mr. Riderhood added 
incidentally.) 

"On suspicion of ?" 



142 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Of seaman's pocket," said Mr. Riderhood. "Whereby I was 
in reality the man's best friend, and tried to take care of him." 

" With the sweat of your brow ? " asked Eugene. 

" Till it poured down like rain," said Roger Riderhood. 

Eugene leaned back in his chair, and smoked with his eyes 
negligently turned on the informer, and his pen ready to reduce him 
to more writing. Light wood also smoked, with his eyes negligently 
turned on the informer. 

" Now let me be took down again," said Riderhood, when he had 
turned the drowned cap over and under, and had brushed it the 
wrong way (if it had a right way) with his sleeve. "I give infor- 
mation that the man that done tlie Harmon Murder is Gaffer Hexam, 
the man that found the body. The hand of Jesse Hexam, commonly 
called Gaffer on the river and alongshore, is the hand that done that 
deed. His hand and no other." 

The two friends glanced at one another with more serious faces 
than they had shown yet. 

"Tell us on what grounds you make this accusation," said 
Mortimer Light wood. 

"On the grounds," answered Riderhood, wiping his face with his 
sleeve, "that I was Gaffer's pardner, and suspected of him many a 
long day and many a dark night. On the grounds that I knowed his 
ways. On the grounds that I broke the pardnership because I see the 
danger ; which I warn you his daughter may tell you another story 
about that, for anythink I can say, but you know what it'll be 
worth, for she'd tell you lies, the world round and the heavens broad, 
to save her father. On the grounds that it's well understood along 
the cause'ays and the stairs that he done it. On the grounds that 
he's fell off from, because he done it. On the grounds that I will 
swear he done it. On the grounds that you may take me where you 
will, and get me sworn to it. / don't want to back out of the conse- 
quences. I have made up my mind. Take me anywheres. 

"All this is nothing," said Lightwood. 

" Nothing ? " repeated Riderhood, indignantly and amazedly. 

" Merely nothing. It goes to no more than that you suspect this 
man of the crime. You may do so with some reason, or you may do 
so with no reason, but he cannot be convicted on your suspicion." 

" Haven't I said — I appeal to the T'other Governor as my wit- 
ness — haven't I said from the first minute that I opened my mouth 
in this here world-without-end-everlasting chair " (he evidently used 
that form of words as next in force to an affidavit), " that I was 
willing to swear that he done it ? Haven't I said. Take me and 
get me sworn to it % Don't I say so now % You won't deny it, 
Lawyer Lightwood % " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 143 

" Surely not ; but you only offer to swear to your suspicion, and 
I tell you it is not enough to swear to your suspicion." 

"Not enough, ain't it, Lawyer Lightwoocl?" he cautiously de- 
manded. 

" Positively not." 

" And did I say it ivas enough ? Now, I appeal to the T'other 
Governor. Now, fair ! Did I say so ? " 

" He certainly has not said that he had no more to tell," Eugene 
observed in a low voice without looking at him, " whatever he seemed 
to imply." 

" Hah ! " cried the informer, triumphantly perceiving that the 
remark was generally in his favour, though apparently not closely 
understanding it. " Fort'nate for me I had a witness ! " 

" Go on, then," said Lightwood. " Say out what you have to say. 
No after-thought." 

" Let me be took down then ! " cried the informer, eagerly and 
anxiously. " Let me be took down, for by George and the Draggin 
I'm a coming to it now ! Don't do nothing to keep back from a 
honest man the fruits of the sweat of his brow ! I give information, 
then, that he told me that he done it. Is that enough ? " 

"Take care what you say, my friend," returned Mortimer. 

" Lawyer Lightwood, take care, you, what I say ; for I judge you'll 
be answerable for follering it up ! " Then, slowly and emphatically 
beating it all out with his open right hand on the palm of his left ; 
" I, Roger Riderhood, Lime'us Hole, Waterside character, tell you, 
Lawyer Lightwood, that the man Jesse Hexam, commonly called 
upon the river and alongshore Gaffer, told me tliat he done the deed. 
What's more, he told me with his own lips that he done the deed. 
What's more, he said that he done the deed. And I'll swear it ! " 

" Where did he tell you so ? " 

"Outside," replied Riderhood, always beating it out, with his 
head determinedly set askew, and his eyes watchfully dividing their 
attention between his two auditors, " outside the door of the Six 
Jolly Fellowships, towards a quarter arter twelve o'clock at mid- 
night — but I will not in my conscience undertake to swear to so 
fine a matter as five minutes — on the night when he picked up the 
body. The Six Jolly Fellowships stands on the spot still. The Six 
Jolly Fellowships won't run away. If it turns out that he warn't 
at the Six Jolly Fellowships that night at midnight, I'm a liar." 

" What did he say ?" 

" I'll tell you (take me down, T'other Governor, I ask no better). 
He come out first ; I come out last. I might be a minute arter 
him ; I might be half a minute, I might be a quarter of a minute ; 
I cannot swear to that, and therefore I won't. That's knowing the 
obligations of a Alfred David, ain't it 1 " 



144 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Goon." 

" I found him a waiting to speak to me. He says to me, ' Rogue 
Riderhood ' — for that's the name I'm mostly called by — not for 
any meaning in it, for meaning it has none, but because of its being 
similar to Roger." 

"Never mind that." 

" 'Sense me^ Lawyer Light wood, it's a part of the truth, and as 
such I do mind it, and I must mind it and I will mind it. ' Rogue 
Riderhood,' he says, ' words passed betwixt us on the river to-night.' 
Which they had ; ask his daughter ! ' I threatened you,' he says, 
' to chop you over the fingers with my boat's stretcher, or take a aim 
at your brains with my boat-hook. I did so on accounts of your 
looking too hard at what I had in tow, as if you was suspicious, 
and on accounts of your holding on to the gunwale of my boat.' I 
says to him, * Gaffer, I know it.' He says to me, ' Rogue Riderhood, 
you are a man in a dozen ' — I think he said in a score, but of that 
I am not positive, so take the lowest figure, for precious be the 
obligations of a Alfred David. ' And,' he says, ' when your fellow- 
men is up, be it their lives or be it their watches, sharp is ever the 
word with you. Had you suspicions ? ' I says, ' Gaffer, I had ; and 
what's more, I have.' He falls a shaking and he says, ' Of what 1 ' 
I says, ' Of foul play.' He falls a shaking worse, and he says, 
' There ivas foul play then. I done it for his money. Don't betray 
me ! ' Those were the words as ever he used." 

There was a silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in the 
grate. An opportunity which the informer improved by smearing 
himself all over the head and neck and face with his drowned cap, 
and not at all improving his own appearance. 

"What more?" asked Lightwood. 

" Of him, d'ye mean. Lawyer Lightwood ? " 

" Of anything to the purpose." 

" Now, I'm blest if I understand you. Governors Both," said the 
informer, in a creeping manner : propitiating both, though only one 
had spoken. "What? Ain't ^Aa^ enough ? " 

" Did you ask him how he did it, where he did it, when he did 
it?" 

" Far be it from me. Lawyer Lightwood ! I was so troubled in 
my mind, that I wouldn't have knowed more, no, not for the sum 
as I expect to earn from you by the sweat of my brow, twice told ! 
I had put an end to the pardnership. I had cut the connexion. I 
couldn't undo what was done ; and when he begs and prays, * Old 
pardner, on my knees, don't split upon me ! ' I only makes answer, 
' Never speak another word to Roger Riderhood, nor look him in the 
face ! ' and I shuns that man." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 145 

Having given these words a swing to make them mount the higher 
and go the further, Rogue Riderhood poured himself out another 
glass of wine unbidden, and seemed to chew it, as, with the half- 
emptied glass in his hand, he stared at the candles. 

Mortimer glanced at Eugene, but Eugene sat glowering at his 
paper, and would give him no responsive glance. Mortimer again 
turned to the informer, to whom he said : 

" You have been troubled in your mind a long time, man 1 " 

Giving his wine a final chew, and swallowing it, the informer 
answered in a single word : 

" Hages ! " 

" When all that stir was made, when the government reward 
was offered, when the police were on the alert, when the whole 
country rang with the crime ! " said Mortimer, impatiently. 

" Hah ! " Mr. Riderhood very slowly and hoarsely chimed in, with 
several retrospective nods of his head. " Warn't I troubled in my 
mind then ! " 

" When conjecture ran wild, when the most extravagant suspicions 
were afloat, when half-a-dozen innocent people might have been laid 
by the heels any hour in the day ! " said Mortimer, almost warming. 

" Hah ! " Mr. Riderhood chimed in, as before. " Warn't I troubled 
in my mind through it all ! " 

" But he hadn't," said Eugene, drawing a lady's head upon his 
writing-paper, and touching it at intervals, " the opportunity then of 
earning so much money, you see." 

" The T'other Governor hits the nail, Lawyer Lightwood ! It 
was that as turned me. I had many times and again struggled to 
relieve myself of the trouble on my mind, but I couldn't get it off". 
I had once very nigh got it off" to Miss Abbey Potterson which keeps 
the Six Jolly Fellowships — there is the 'ouse, it won't run away, 
— there lives the lady, she ain't likely to be struck dead afore you 
get there — ask her ! — but I couldn't do it. At last, out comes 
the new bill with your own lawful name. Lawyer Lightwood, printed 
to it, and then I asks the question of my own intellects, Am I to 
have this trouble on my mind for ever ? Am I never to throw 
it off? Am I always to think more of Gaffer than of my ownself ? 
If he's got a daughter, ain't / got a daughter ? " 

"And echo answered 1 " Eugene suggested. 

" 'You have,' " said Mr. Riderhood, in a firm tone. 

" Incidentally mentioning, at the same time, her age? " inquired 
Eugene. 

" Yes, Governor. Two-and- twenty last October. And then I 
put it to myself, ' Regarding the money. It is a pot of money.' For 
it is a pot," said Mr. Riderhood, with candour, " and why deny it 1 " 



146 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Hear ! " from Eugene as he touched his drawing. 

" ' It is a pot of money ; but is it a sin for a labouring man that 
moistens every crust of bread he earns with his tears — or if not 
with them, with the colds he catches in his head — is it a sin for 
that man to earn it 1 Say there is anything again earning it.' 
This I put to myself strong, as in duty bound ; ' how can it be said 
without blaming Lawyer Lightwood for offering it to be earned ? ' 
And was it for 7?ie to blame Lawyer Lightwood ? No." 

" No," said Eugene. 

"Certainly not. Governor," Mr. Riderhood acquiesced. "Sol 
made up my mind to get my trouble off my mind, and to earn by 
the sweat of my brow what was held out to me. And what's more," 
he added, suddenly turning bloodthirsty, " I mean to have it I And 
now I tell you, once and away. Lawyer Lightwood, that Jesse Hexam, 
commonly called Gaffer, his hand and no other, done the deed, on 
his own confession to me. And I give him up to you, and I want 
him took. This night ! " 

After another silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in the 
grate, which attracted the informer's attention as if it were the 
chinking of money, Mortimer Lightwood leaned over his friend, 
and said in a whisper : 

"I suppose I must go with this fellow to our imperturbable 
friend at the police-station." 

"I suppose," said Eugene, "there is no help for it." 

" Do you believe him ? " 

"I believe him to be a thorough rascal. But he may tell the 
truth, for his own purpose, and for this occasion only." 

"It doesn't look like it." 

" ZTe doesn't," said Eugene. "But neither is his late partner, 
whom he denounces, a prepossessing person. The firm are cut- 
throat Shepherds both, in appearance. I should like to ask him 
one thing." 

The subject of this conference sat leering at the ashes, trying 
with all his might to overhear what was said, but feigning abstrac- 
tion as the " Governors Both " glanced at him. 

"You mentioned (twice, I think) a daughter of this Hexam's," 
said Eugene, aloud. " You don't mean to imply that she had any 
guilty knowledge of the crime ? " 

The honest man, after considering — perhaps considering how his 
answer might affect the fruits of the sweat of his brow — replied 
unreservedly, " No, I don't." 

" And you implicate no other person ? " 

" It ain't what I implicate, it's what Gaffer implicated," was the 
dogged and determined answer. " I don't pretend to know more 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 147 

than that his words to me was, 'I done it.' Those was his 
words." 

"I must see this out, Mortimer," whispered Eugene, rising. 
"How shall we go?" 

" Let us walk," whispered Lightwood, " and give this fellow time 
to think of it." 

' Having exchanged the question and answer, they prepared them- 
selves for going out, and Mr. Riderhood rose. While extinguishing 
the candles, Lightwood, quite as a matter of course, took up the 
glass from which that honest gentleman had drunk, and coolly tossed 
it under the grate, where it fell shivering into fragments. 

"Now, if you will take the lead," said Lightwood, "Mr. Wray- 
burn and I will follow. You know where to go, I suppose ? " 

" I suppose I do, Lawyer Lightwood." 

" Take the lead, then." 

The waterside character pulled his drowned cap over his ears with 
both hands, and making himself more round-shouldered than nature 
had made him, by the sullen and persistent slouch with which he 
went, went down the stairs, round by the Temple Church, across 
the Temple into Whitefriars, and so on by the waterside streets. 

"Look at his hang-dog air," said Lightwood, following. 

"It strikes me rather as a hang-??ia?i air," returned Eugene. 
" He has undeniable intentions that way." 

They said little else as they followed. He went on before them 
as an ugly Fate might have done, and they kept him in view, and 
would have been glad enough to lose sight of him. But on he 
went before them always at the same distance, and the same rate. 
Aslant against the hard implacable weather and the rough wind, he 
was no more to be driven back than hurried forward, but held on like 
an advancing Destiny. There came, when they were about mid- 
way on their journey, a hea\7' rush of hail, which in a few minutes 
pelted the streets clear, and whitened them. It made no difference 
to him. A man's life being to be taken and the price of it got, 
the hailstones to arrest the purpose must lie larger and deeper than 
those. He crushed through them, leaving marks in the fast-melting 
slush that were mere shapeless holes ; one might have fancied, follow- 
ing, that the very fashion of humanity had departed from his feet. 

The blast went by, and the moon contended with the fast-flying 
clouds, and the wild disorder reigning up there made the pitiful 
little tumults in the streets of no account. It was not that the 
wind swept all the brawlers into places of shelter, as it had swept 
the hail still lingering in heaps wherever there was refuge for it ; 
but that it seemed as if the streets were absorbed by the sky, and 
the night were all in the air. 



148 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"If he has had time to think of it," said Eugene, "he has not 
had time to think better of it — or differently of it, if that's better. 
There is no sign of drawing back in him ; and as I recollect this 
place, we must be close upon the corner where we alighted that 
night." 

In fact, a few abrupt turns brought them to the river side, where 
they had slipped about among the stones, and where they now 
slipped more ; the wind coming against them in slants and flaws, 
across the tide and the windings of the river, in a furious way. 

With that habit of getting under the lee of any shelter which 
waterside characters acquire, the waterside character at present in 
question led the way to the lee side of the Six Jolly Fellowship 
Porters before he spoke. 

"Look round here. Lawyer Light wood, at them red curtains. 
It's the Fellowships, the 'ouse as I told you wouldn't run away. 
And has it run away ? " 

Not showing himself much impressed by this remarkable confir- 
mation of the informer's evidence, Lightwood inquired what other 
business they had there ? 

" I wished you to see the Fellowships for yourself, Lawyer Light- 
wood, that you might judge whether I'm a liar ; and now I'll see 
Gaffer's window for myself, that we may know whether he's at 
home." 

With that, he crept away. 

" He'll come back, I suppose ? " murmured Lightwood. 

"Ay ! and go through with it," murmured Eugene. 

He came back after a very short interval indeed. 

" Gaffer's out, and his boat's out. His daughter's at home, sit- 
ting a looking at the fire. But there's some supper getting ready, 
so Gaffer's expected. I can find what move he's upon, easy enough, 
presently." 

Then he beckoned and led the way again, and they came to the 
police-station, still as clean and cool and steady as before, saving 
that the flame of its lamp — being but a lamp-flame, and only at- 
tached to the Force as an outsider — flickered in the wind. 

Also, within doors, Mr. Inspector was at his studies as of yore. 
He recognised the friends the instant they reappeared, but their re- 
appearance had no effect on his composure. Not even the circum- 
stance that Riderhood was their conductor moved him, otherwise 
than that as he took a dip of ink he seemed, by a settlement of his 
chin in his stock, to propound to that personage, without looking at 
him, the question, " What have you been up to, last ? " 

Mortimer Lightwood asked him, would he be so good as look 
at those notes ? Handing him Eugene's. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 149 

Having read the first few lines, Mr. Inspector mounted to that 
(for him) extraordinary pitch of emotion that he said, " Does either 
of you two gentlemen happen to have a pinch of snuff about him 1 " 
Finding that neither had, he did quite as well without it, and read 
on. 

" Have you heard these read ? " he then demanded of the honest 
man. 

"No," said Riderhood. 

" Then you had better hear them." And so read them aloud, 
in an official manner. 

" Are these notes correct, now, as to the information you bring 
here and the evidence you mean to give ? " he asked, when he had 
finished reading. 

" They are. They are as correct," returned Mr. Riderhood, " as I 
am. I can't say more than that for 'em." 

" I'll take this man myself, sir," said Mr. Inspector to Lightwood. 
Then to Riderhood, "Is he at home 1 Where is he ? What's he 
doing ? You have made it your business to know all about him, 
no doubt." 

Riderhood said what he did know, and promised to find out in 
a few minutes what he didn't know. 

"Stop," said Mr. Inspector; "not till I tell you. We mustn't 
look like business. Would you two gentlemen object to making 
a pretence of taking a glass of something in my company at the 
Fellowships 1 Well-conducted house, and highly respectable land- 
lady." 

They replied that they would be happy to substitute a reality for 
the pretence, which, in the main, appeared to be as one with Mr. 
Inspector's meaning. 

" Very good," said he, taking his hat from its peg, and putting 
a pair of handcuffs in his pocket as if they were his gloves. " Re- 
serve ! " Reserve saluted. "You know where to find me?" 
Reserve again saluted. "Riderhood, when you have found out 
concerning his coming home, come round to the window of Cosy, 
tap twice at it, and wait for me. Now, gentlemen." 

As the three went out together, and Riderhood slouched off from 
under the trembling lamp his separate way, Lightwood asked the 
officer what he thought of this ? 

Mr. Inspector replied, with due generality and reticence, that it 
was always more likely that a man had done a bad thing than that 
he hadn't. That he himself had several times " reckoned up " Gaf- 
fer, but had never been able to bring him to a satisfactory criminal 
total. That if this story was true, it was only in part true. That 
the two men, very shy characters, would have been jointly and 



150 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

pretty equally " in it ; " but that this man had " spotted " the other, 
to save himself and get the money. 

"And I think," added Mr. Inspector, in conclusion, "that if all 
goes well with him, he's in a tolerable way of getting it. But as 
this is the Fellowships, gentlemen, where the lights are, I recom- 
mend dropping the subject. You can't do better than be interested 
in some lime works anywhere down about Northfleet, and doubtful 
whether some of your lime don't get into bad company, as it comes 
up in barges." 

" You hear, Eugene ? " said Lightwood, over his shoulder. " You 
are deeply interested in lime." 

"Without lime," returned that unmoved barrister-at-law, "m.y 
existence would be unilluminated by a ray of hope." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY. 

The two lime merchants, with their escort, entered the dominions 
of Miss Abbey Potterson, to whom their escort (presenting them and 
their pretended business over the half-door of the bar, in a confiden- 
tial way) preferred his figurative request that "a mouthful of fire" 
might be lighted in Cosy. Always well disposed to assist the consti- 
tuted authorities. Miss Abbey bade Bob Gliddery attend the gentle- 
men to that retreat, and promptly enliven it with fire and gaslight. 
Of this commission the bare-armed Bob, leading the way with a 
flaming wisp of paper, so speedily acquitted himself, that Cosy 
seemed to leap out of a dark sleep and embrace them warmly, the 
moment they passed the lintels of its hospitable door. 

"They burn sherry very well here," said Mr. Inspector, as a 
piece of local intelligence. " Perhaps you gentlemen might like a 
bottle ? " 

The answer being By all means. Bob Gliddery received his in- 
structions from Mr. Inspector, and departed in a becoming state of 
alacrity engendered by reverence for the majesty of the law, 

"It's a certain fact," said Mr. Inspector, "that this man we 
have received our information from," indicating Riderhood with his 
thumb over his shoulder, " has for some time past given the other 
man a bad name arising out of your lime barges, and that the other 
man has been avoided in consequence. I don't say what it means 
or proves, but it's a certain fact. I had it first from one of the 
opposite sex of my acquaintance," vaguely indicating Miss Abbey with 
his thumb over his shoulder, " down away at a distance, over yonder," 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 151 

Then probably Mr. Inspector was not quite unprepared for their 
visit that evening ? Light wood hinted. 

"Well, you see," said Mr. Inspector, '*it was a question of mak- 
ing a move. It's of no use moving if you don't know what your 
move is. You had better by far keep still. In the matter of this 
lime, I certainly had an idea that it might lie betwixt' the two men ; 
I always had that idea. Still I was forced to wait for a start, and 
I wasn't so lucky as to get a start. This man that we have received 
our information from, has got a start, and if he don't meet with a 
check he may make the running and come in first. There may turn 
out to be something considerable for him that comes in second, and 
I don't mention who may or who may not try for that place. There's 
duty to do, and I shall do it, under any circumstances, to the best 
of my judgment and ability." 

"Speaking as a shipper of lime " began Eugene. 

"Which no man has a better right to do than yourself, you 
know," said Mr. Inspector. 

"I hope not," said Eugene; "my father having been a shipper 
of lime before me, and my grandfather before him — in fact we have 
been a family immersed to the crowns of our heads in lime during 
several generations — I beg to observe that if this missing lime 
could be got hold of without any young female relative of any dis- 
tinguished gentlemen engaged in the lime trade (which I cherish 
next to my life) being present, I think it might be a more agree- 
able proceeding to the assisting bystanders, that is to say, lime- 
burners." 

" I also," said Lightwood, pushing his friend aside with a laugh, 
" should much prefer that." 

"It shall be done, gentlemen, if it can be done conveniently," 
said Mr. Inspector, with coolness. " There is no wish on my part 
to cause any distress in that quarter. Indeed, I am sorry for 
that quarter." 

" There was a boy in that quarter," remarked Eugene. "He is 
still there?" 

" No," said Mr. Inspector. " He has quitted those works. He 
is otherwise disposed of." 

"Will she be left alone then?" asked Eugene. 

" She will be left," said Mr. Inspector, " alone." 

Bob's reappearance with a steaming jug broke off the conversation. 
But although the jug steamed forth a delicious perfume, its contents 
had not received that last happy touch which the surpassing finish 
of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters imparted on such momentous 
occasions. Bob carried in his left hand one of those iron models of 
sugar-loaf hats before mentioned, into which he emptied the jug, and 



152 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

the pointed end of which he thrust deep down into the fire, so leav- 
ing it for a few moments while he disappeared and reappeared with 
three bright drinking-glasses. Placing these on the table and bend- 
ing over the fire, meritoriously sensible of the trying nature of his duty, 
he watched the wreaths of steam, until at the special instant of pro- 
jection he caught up the iron vessel and gave it one delicate twirl, 
causing it to send forth one gentle hiss. Then he restored the con- 
tents to the jug ; held over the steam of the jug, each of the three 
bright glasses in succession ; finally filled them all, and with a clear 
conscience awaited the applause of his fellow-creatures. 

It was bestowed (Mr. Inspector having proposed as an appropriate 
sentiment " The lime trade ! "), and Bob withdrew to report the com- 
mendations of the guests to Miss Abbey in the bar. It may be 
here in confidence admitted that, the room being close shut in his 
absence, there had not appeared to be the slightest reason for the 
elaborate maintenance of this same lime fiction. Only it had been 
regarded by Mr. Inspector as so uncommonly satisfactory, and so 
fraught with mysterious virtues, that neither of his clients had 
presumed to question it. 

Two taps were now heard on the outside of the window. Mr. 
Inspector, hastily fortifying himself with another glass, strolled out 
with a noiseless foot and an unoccupied countenance. As one might 
go to survey the weather and the general aspect of the heavenly bodies. 

"This is becoming grim, Mortimer," said Eugene in a low voice. 
" I don't like this." 

" Nor I," said Lightwood. " Shall we go ? " 

" Being here, let us stay. You ought to see it out, and I won't 
leave you. Besides, that lonely girl with the dark hair runs in my 
head. It was little more than a glimpse we had of her that last time, 
and yet I almost see her waiting by the fire to-night. Do you feel 
like a dark combination of traitor and jDickpocket when you think 
of that girl ? " 

" Rather," returned Lightwood. " Do you 1 " 

" Very much so." 

Their escort strolled back again, and reported. Divested of its 
various lime-lights and shadows, his report went to the eff'ect that 
Gaffer was away in his boat, supposed to be on his old look-out ; 
that he had been expected last high-water ; that having missed it 
for some reason or other, he was not, according to his usual habits 
at night, to be counted on before next high-water, or it might be an 
hour or so later ; that his daughter, surveyed through the window, 
would seem to be so expecting him, for the supper was not cooking, 
but set out ready to be cooked ; that it would be high-water at 
about one, and that it was now barely ten ; that there was nothing 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 153 

to be done but watch and wait : that the informer was keeping watch 
at the instant of that present reporting, but that two heads were bet- 
ter than one (especially when the second was Mr. Inspector's) ; and 
that the reporter meant to share the watch. And forasmuch as 
crouching under the lee of a hauled-up boat on a night when it blew 
cold and strong, and when the weather was varied with blasts of hail 
at times, might be wearisome to amateurs, the reporter closed with the 
recommendation that the two gentlemen should remain, for awhile 
at any rate, in their present quarters, which were weather-tight and 
warm. 

Tliey were not inclined to dispute this recommendation, but they 
wanted to know where they could join the watchers when so dis- 
posed. Rather than trust to a verbal description of the place, which 
might mislead, Eugene (with a less weighty sense of personal trouble 
on him than he usually had) would go out with Mr. Inspector, note 
the spot, and come back. 

On the shelving bank of the river, among the slimy stones of a 
causeway — not the special causeway of the Six Jolly Fellowships, 
which had a landing-place of its own, but another, a little removed, 
and very near to the old windmill which was the denounced man's 
dwelling-place — were a few boats; some, moored and already 
beginning to float ; others, hauled up above the reach of the tide. 
Under one of these latter Eugene's companion disappeared. And 
when Engene had observed its position with reference to the other 
boats, and had made sure that he could not miss it, he turned his 
eyes upon the building where, as he had been told, the lonely girl 
with the dark hair sat by the fire. 

He could see the light of the fire shining through the window. 
Perhaps it drew him on to look in. Perhaps he had come out with 
the express intention. That part of the bank having rank grass 
growing on it, there was no difficulty in getting close, without any 
noise of footsteps : it was but to scramble up a ragged face of pretty 
hard mud some three or four feet high and come upon the grass and 
to the window. He came to the window by that means. 

She had no other light than the light of the fire. The unkindled 
lamp stood on the table. She sat on the ground, looking at the 
brasier, with her face leaning on her hand. There was a kind of 
film or flicker on her face, which at first he took to be the fitful fire- 
light ; but, on a second look, he saw that she was weeping. A sad 
and solitary spectacle, as shown him by the rising and the falling of 
the fire. 

It was a little window of but four pieces of glass, and was not 
curtained ; he chose it because the larger window near it was. It 
showed him the room, and the bills upon the wall respecting the 




WAITING FOR FATHEK. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 155 

drowned people starting out and receding by turns. But he glanced 
slightly at them, though he looked long and steadily at her. A deep 
rich piece of colour, with the brown flush of her cheek and the shin- 
ing lustre of her hair, though sad and solitary, weeping by the rising 
and the falling of the fire. 

She started up. He had been so very still, that he felt sure it 
was not he who had disturbed her, so merely withdrew from the win- 
dow and stood near it in the shadow of the wall. She opened the 
door, and said in an alarmed tone, " Father, was that you calling 
me?" And again, "Father!" And once again, after listening, 
" Father ! I thought I heard you call me twice before ! " 

No response. As she re-entered at the door, he dropped over the 
bank and made his way back, among the ooze and near the hiding- 
place, to Mortimer Lightwood : to whom he told what he had seen 
of the girl, and how this was becoming very grim indeed. 

" If the real man feels as guilty as I do," said Eugene, " he is 
remarkably uncomfortable. " 

" Influence of secrecy," suggested Lightwood. 

" I am not at all obliged to it for making me Guy Fawkes in the 
vault and a Sneak in the area both at once," said Eugene. " Give 
me some more of that stuff"." 

Lightwood helped him to some of that stuff", but it had been cool- 
ing, and didn't answer now. 

" Pooh," said Eugene, spitting it out among the ashes. " Tastes 
like the wash of the river." 

" Are you so familiar with the flavour of the wash of the river ? " 

" I seem to be to-night. I feel as if I had been half drowned, 
and swallowing a gallon of it." 

"Influence of locality," suggested Lightwood. 

"You are mighty learned to-night, you and your influences," 
returned Eugene. " How long shall we stay here ? " 

" How long do you think ? " 

"If I could choose, I shouldsay a minute," replied Eugene, "for 
the Jolly Fellowship Porters are not the j oiliest dogs I have known. 
But I suppose we are best here till they turn us out with the other 
suspicious characters, at midnight." 

Thereupon he stirred the fire, and sat down on one side of it. It 
struck eleven, and he made believe to compose himself patiently. 
But gradually he took the fidgets in one leg, and then in the other 
leg, and then in one arm, and then in the other arm, and then in his 
chin, and then in his back, and then in his forehead, and then in his 
hair, and then in his nose ; and then he stretched himself recumbent 
on two chairs, and groaned ; and then he started up. 

" Invisible insects of diabolical activity swarm in this place. I 



156 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

am tickled and twitched all over. Mentally, I have now committed 
a burglary under the meanest circumstances, and the myrmidons of 
justice are at my heels." 

" I am quite as bad," said Lightwood, sitting up facing him, with 
a tumbled head, after going through some wonderful evolutions, in 
which his head had been the lowest part of him. " This restlessness 
began, ^\dth me, long ago. All the time you were out, I felt like 
Gulliver with the Lilliputians firing upon him." 

" It won't do, Mortimer. We must get into the air ; we must join 
our dear friend and brother, Riderhood. And let us tranquillize 
ourselves by making a compact. Next time (with a view to our 
peace of mind) we'll commit the crime, instead of taking the crimi- 
nal. You swear it ? " 

" Certainly." 

" Sworn ! Let Tippins look to it. Her life's in danger." 

Mortimer rang the bell to pay the score, and Bob appeared to trans- 
act that business with him : whom Eugene, in his careless extrav- 
agance, asked if he would like a situation in the lime-trade 1 

" Thankee sir, no sir," said Bob. " I've a good sitiwation here, sir." 

" If you change your mind at any time," returned Eugene, " come 
to me at my works, and you'll always find an opening in the lime- 
kiln." 

" Thankee sir," said Bob. 

" This is my partner," said Eugene, "who keeps the books and 
attends to the wages. A fair day's wages for a fair day's work is 
ever my partner's motto." 

"And a very good 'un it is, gentlemen," said Bob, receiving his 
fee, and drawing a bow out of his head with his right hand, very 
much as he would have drawn a pint of beer out of the beer engine. 

"Eugene," Mortimer apostrophised him, laughing quite heartily 
when they were alone again, "how can you be so ridiculous ? " 

" I am in a ridiculous humour," quoth Eugene ; " I am a ridiculous 
fellow. Everything is ridiculous. Come along ! " 

It passed into Mortimer Lightwood's mind that a change of some 
sort, best expressed perhaps as an intensification of all that was wild- 
est and most negligent and reckless in his friend, had come upon 
him in the last half-hour or so. Thoroughly used to him as he was, 
he found something new and strained in him that was for the mo- 
ment perplexing. This passed into his mind, and passed out again ; 
but he remembered it afterwards. 

"There's where she sits, you see," said Eugene, when they were 
standing under the bank, roared and riven at by the wind. " There's 
the light of her fire." 

"I'll take a peep through the window," said Mortimer. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 157 

" No, don't ! " Eugene caught him by the arm. " Best not make 
a show of her. Come to our honest friend." 

He led him to the post of watch, and they both dropped down 
and crept under the lee of the boat ; a better shelter than it had 
seemed before, being directly contrasted with the blowing wind and 
the bare night. 

"Mr. Inspector at home?" whispered Eugene. 

" Here I am, sir." 

" And our friend of the perspiring brow is at the far corner there ? 
Good. Anything happened 1 " 

" His daughter has been out, thinking she heard him calling, 
unless it was a sign for him to keep out of the way. It might have 
been." 

"It might have been Rule Britannia," muttered Eugene, "but 
it wasn't. Mortimer ! " 

" Here ! " (On the other side of Mr. Inspector.) 

"Two burglaries now, and a forgery ! " 

With this indication of his depressed state of mind, Eugene fell 
silent. 

They were all silent for a long while. As it got to be flood-tide, 
and the water came nearer to them, noises on the river became more 
frequent, and they listened more. To the turning of steam-paddles, 
to the clinking of iron chain, to the creaking of blocks, to the 
measured working of oars, to the occasional violent barking of some 
passing dog on shipboard, who seemed to scent them lying in their 
hiding-place. The night was not so dark but that, besides the lights 
at bows and mastheads gliding to and fro, they could discern some 
shadowy bulk attached ; and now and then a ghostly lighter with 
a large dark sail, like a warning arm, would start up very near them, 
pass on, and vanish. At this time of their watch, the water close 
to them would be often agitated by some impulsion given it from a 
distance. Often they believed this beat and plash to be the boat 
they lay in wait for, running in ashore ; and again and again they 
would have started up, but for the immobility with which the 
informer, well used to the river, kept quiet in his place. 

The wind carried away the striking of the great multitude of city 
church clocks, for those lay to leeward of them ; but there were bells 
to windward that told them of its being One — Two — Three. 
Without that aid they would have known how the night wore, by 
the falling of the tide, recorded in the appearance of an ever-widen- 
ing black wet strip of shore, and the emergence of the paved cause- 
way from the river, foot by foot. 

As the time so passed, this slinking business became a more and 
more precarious one. It would seem as if the man had had some 



158 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

intimation of what was in hand against him, or had taken fright 
His movements might have been planned to gain for him, in getting 
beyond their reach, twelve hours' advantage. The honest man who 
had expended the sweat of his brow became uneasy, and began to 
complain with bitterness of the proneness of mankind to cheat 
him — him invested with the dignity of Labour ! 

Their retreat was so chosen that while they could watch the river, 
they could watch the house. No one had passed in or out, since 
the daughter thought she heard the father calling. No one could 
pass in or out without being seen. 

"But it will be light at five," said Mr. Inspector, "and then ive 
shall be seen." 

"Look here," said Riderhood, "what do you say to this? He 
may have been lurking in and out, and just holding his own betwixt 
two or three bridges, for hours back." 

" What do you make of that % " said Mr. Inspector. Stoical, but 
contradictory. 

" He may be doing so at this present time." 

" What do you make of tliat ? " said Mr. Inspector. 

" My boat's among them boats here at the cause'ay." 

" And what do you make of your boat ? " said Mr. Inspector. 

"What if I put off in her and take a look round? I know his 
ways, and the likely nooks he favours. I know where he'd be at 
such a time of the tide, and where he'd be at such another time. 
Ain't I been his pardner 1 None of you need show. None of you 
need stir. I can shove her off without help ; and as to me being 
seen, I'm about at all times." 

"You might have given a worse opinion," said Mr. Inspector, 
after brief consideration. " Try it." 

" Stop a bit. Let's work it out. If I want you, I'll drop round 
under the Fellowships and tip you a whistle." 

" If I might so far presume as to offer a suggestion to my honour- 
able and gallant friend, whose knowledge of naval matters far be it 
from me to impeach," Eugene struck in with great deliberation, 
" it would be, that to tip a whistle is to advertise mystery and in- 
vite speculation. My honourable and gallant friend will, I trust, 
excuse me, as an independent member, for throwing out a remark 
which I feel to be due to this house and the country." 

"Was that the T'other Governor, or Lawyer Lightwood ?" asked 
Riderhood. For they spoke as they crouched or lay, without see- 
ing one another's faces. 

"In reply to the question put by my honourable and gallant 
friend," said Eugene, who was lying on his back with his hat on 
his face, as an attitude highly expressive of watchfulness, " I can 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 159 

have no hesitation in replying ( it not being inconsistent with the 
public service) that those accents were the accents of the T'other 
Governor." 

" You've tolerable good eyes, ain't you, Governor 1 You've all 
tolerable good eyes, ain't you? " demanded the informer. 

All. 

" Then if I row up under the Fellowships and lay there, no need 
to whistle. You'll make out that there's a speck of something or 
another there, and you'll know it's me, and you'll come down that 
cause'ay to me. Understood all ? " 

Understood all. 

" Off she goes then ! " 

In a moment, with the wind cutting keenly at him sideways, he 
was staggering down to his boat ; in a few moments he was clear, 
and creeping up the river under their own shore. 

Eugene had raised himself on his elbow to look into the dark- 
ness after him. " I wish the boat of my honourable and gallant 
friend," he murmured, lying down again and speaking into his 
hat, " may be endowed with philanthropy enough to turn bottom- 
upward and extinguish him ! — Mortimer." 

" My honourable friend." 

" Three burglaries, two forgeries, and a midnight assassination." 

Yet in spite of having those weights on his conscience, Eugene 
was somewhat enlivened by the late slight change in the circum- 
stances of affairs. So were his two companions. It's being a 
change was everything. The suspense seemed to have taken a 
new lease, and to have begun afresh from a recent date. There 
was something additional to look for. They were all three more 
sharply on the alert, and less deadened by the miserable influences 
of the place and time. 

More than an hour had passed, and they were even dozing, when 
one of the three — - each said it was he, and he had not dozed — 
made out Riderhood in his boat at the spot agreed on. They 
sprang up, came out from their shelter, and went down to him. 
When he saw them coming, he dropped alongside the causeway; 
so that they, standing on the causeway, could speak with him in 
whispers, under the shadowy mass of tlie Six Jolly Fellowship 
Porters fast asleep. 

" Blest if I can make it out ! " said he, staring at them. 

" Make what out ? Have you seen him ? " 

" No." 

" What have you seen ? " asked Lightwood. For he was staring 
at them in the strangest way. 

" I've seen his boat." 



160 OUK MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Not empty?" 

" Yes, empty. And what's more, — adrift. And what's more, 

— with one scull gone. And what's more, — with t'other scull 
jammed in the thowels and broke short off. And what's more, 

— the boat's drove tight by the tide 'atwixt two tiers of barges. 
And what's more, — he's in luck again, by George if he ain't ! " 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE BIRD OF PEEY BROUGHT DOWN. 

Cold on the shore, in the raw cold of that leaden crisis in the 
four-and-twenty hours when the vital force of all the noblest and 
prettiest things that live is at its lowest, the three watchers 
looked each at the blank faces of the other two, and all at the 
blank face of Riderhood in his boat. 

" Gaffer's boat, Gaffer in luck again, and yet no Gaffer ! " So 
spake Riderhood, staring disconsolate. 

As if with one accord, they all turned their eyes towards the 
light of the fire shining through the window. It was fainter and 
duller. Perhaps fire, like the higher animal and vegetable life it 
helps to sustain, has its greatest tendency towards death, when the 
night is dying and the day is not yet born. 

"If it was me that had the law of this here job in hand," 
growled Riderhood with a threatening shake of his head, " blest if 
I wouldn't lay hold of her, at any rate ! " 

"Ay, but it is not you," said Eugene. With something so 
suddenly fierce in him that the informer returned submissively : 
" Well, well, well. T'other Governor, I didn't say it was. A man 
may speak." 

" And vermin may be silent," said Eugene. " Hold your tongue, 
you water-rat ! " 

Astonished by his friend's unusual heat, Lightwood stared too, 
and then said : " What can have become of this man ? " 

"Can't imagine. Unless he dived overboard." The informer 
wiped his brow ruefully as he said it, sitting in his boat and always 
staring disconsolate. 

"Did you make his boat fast?" 

" She's fast enough till the tide runs back. I couldn't make her 
faster than she is. Come aboard of mine, and see for your own- 
selves." 

There was a little backwardness in complying, for the freight 
looked too much for the boat ; but on Riderhood's protesting " that 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 161 

he had had half-a-dozen, dead and alive, in her afore now, and she 
was nothing deep in the water nor down in the stern even then, 
to speak of," they carefully took their places, and trimmed the crazy 
thing. While they were doing so, Riderhood still sat staring 
disconsolate. 

" All right. Give way ! " said Lightwood. 

" Give way, by George ! " repeated Riderhood, before shoving off. 
" If he's gone and made off anyhow. Lawyer Lightwood, it's enough 
to make me give way in a different manner. But he always was a 
cheat, con-found him ! He always w^as a infernal cheat, was Gaffer. 
Nothing straightfor'ard, nothing on the square. So mean, so under- 
handed. Never going through with a thing, nor carrying it out like 
a man ! " 

" Hallo ! Steady ! " cried Eugene (he had recovered immediately 
on embarking), as they bumped heavily against a pile ; and then in 
a lower voice reversed his late apostrophe by remarking ("I wish 
the boat of my honourable and gallant friend may be endowed with 
philanthropy enough 7iot to turn bottom-upward and extinguish us !) 
Steady, steady ! Sit close, Mortimer. Here's the hail again. See 
how it flies, like a troop of wild cats, at Mr. Riderhood's eyes ! " 

Indeed he had the full benefit of it, and it so mauled him, though 
he bent his head low and tried to present nothing but the mangy 
cap to it, that he dropped under the lee of a tier of shipping, and 
they lay there until it was over. The squall had come up, like a 
spiteful messenger before the morning ; there followed in its wake 
a ragged tier of light which ripped the dark clouds until they showed 
a great grey hole of day. 

They were all shivering, and everything about them seemed to be 
shivering ; the river itself, craft, rigging, sails, such early smoke as 
there yet was on the shore. Black with wet, and altered to the eye 
by wdiite patches of hail and sleet, the huddled buildings looked 
lower than usual, as if they were cowering, and had shrunk with 
the cold. Very little life was to be seen on either bank, windows 
and doors were shut, and the staring black and white letters upon 
wharves and warehouses "looked," said Eugene to Mortimer, "like 
inscriptions over the graves of dead businesses." 

As they glided slowly on, keeping under the shore, and sneaking 
in and out among the shipping, by back-alleys of water, in a pilfer- 
ing way that seemed to be their boatman's normal manner of pro- 
gression, all the objects among which they crept were so huge in 
contrast with their wretched boat as to threaten to crush it. Not 
a ship's hull, with its rusty iron links of cable run out of hawse- 
holes long discoloured with the iron's rusty tears, but seemed to be 
there with a fell intention. Not a figure-head but had the menacing 

M 



162 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

look of bursting forward to run them down. Not a sluice gate, or a 
painted scale upon a post or w^all, showing the depth of water, but 
seemed to hint, like the dreadfully facetious Wolf in bed in Grand- 
mamma's cottage, " That's to drown you in, my dears ! " Not a lum- 
bering black barge, with its cracked and bhstered side impending over 
them, but seemed to suck at the river with a thirst for sucking them 
under. And everything so vaunted the spoiling influences of water 
— discoloured copper, rotten wood, honeycombed stone, green dank 
deposit — that the after-consequences of being crushed, sucked 
under, and drawn down, looked as ugly to the imagination as the 
main event. 

Some half-hour of this work, and Riderhood unshipped his sculls, 
stood holding on to a barge, and hand over hand longwise along the 
barge's side gradually worked his boat under her head into a secret 
little nook of scummy water. And driven into that nook, and 
wedged as he had described, was Gaffer's boat ; that boat with the 
stain still in it, bearing some resemblance to a muffled human form. 

" Now tell me I'm a liar ! " said the honest man. 

("With a morbid expectation," murmured Eugene to Lightwood, 
" that somebody is always going to tell him the truth.") 

"This is Hexam's boat," said Mr. Inspector. "I know her 
well." 

"Look at the broken scull. Look at the t'other scull gone. 
Now tell me I am a liar ! " said the honest man. 

Mr. Inspector stepped into the boat. Eugene and Mortimer 
looked on. 

" And see now ! " added Riderhood, creeping aft, and showing a 
stretched rope made fast there and towing overboard. " Didn't I 
tell you he was in luck again % " 

"Haul in," said Mr. Inspector. 

" Easy to say haul in," answered Riderhood. " Not so easy done. 
His luck's got fouled under the keels of the barges. I tried to haul 
in last time, but I couldn't. See how taut the line is ! " 

" I must have it up," said Mr, Inspector. "I am going to take 
this boat ashore, and his luck along with it. Try easy now." 

He tried easy now ; but the luck resisted ; wouldn't come. 

" I mean to have it, and the boat too," said Mr. Inspector, play- 
ing the line. 

But still the luck resisted ; wouldn't come. 

" Take care," said Riderhood. " You'll disfigure. Or pull asun- 
der perhaps." 

" I am not going to do either, not even to your Grandmother," 
said Mr. Inspector ; " but I mean to have it. Come ! " he added, 
at once persuasively and with authority to the hidden object in the 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 163 

water, as he played the line again ; " it's no good this sort of game, 
you know. You must come up. I mean to have you." 

There was so much virtue in this distinctly and decidedly mean- 
ing to have it, that it yielded a little, even while the line was 
played. 

" I told you so," quoth Mr. Inspector, pulling off his outer coat, 
and leaning well over the stern with a will. " Come ! " 

It was an awful sort of fishing, but it no more disconcerted Mr. 
Inspector than if he had been fishing in a punt on a summer even- 
ing by some soothing weir high up the peaceful river. After certain 
minutes, and a few directions to the rest to "ease her a little 
for'ard," and "now ease her a trifle aft," and the like, he said com- 
posedly, " All clear ! " and the line and the boat came free together. 

Accepting Lightwood's proffered hand to help him up, he then 
put on his coat, and said to Riderhood, " Hand me over those spare 
sculls of yours, and I'll pull this in to the nearest stairs. Go ahead 
you, and keep out in pretty open water, -that I mayn't get fouled 
again." 

His directions were obeyed, and they pulled ashore directly ; two 
in one boat, two in the other. 

"Now," said Mr. Inspector, again to Riderhood, when they were 
all on the slushy stones ; " you have had more practice in this than I 
have had, and ought to be a better workman at it. Undo the tow- 
rope, and we'll help you haul in." 

Riderhood got into the boat accordingly. It appeared as if he had 
scarcely had a moment's time to touch the rope or look over the stern, 
when he came scrambling back, as pale as the morning, and gasped 
out : 

" By the Lord, he's done me ! " 

" What do you mean 1 " they all demanded. 

He pointed behind him at the boat, and gasped to that degree that 
he dropped upon the stones to get his breath. 

" Gaff'er's done me. It's Gaffer ! " 

They ran to the rope, leaving him gasping there. Soon, the form 
of the bird of prey, dead some hours, lay stretched upon the shore, 
with a new blast storming at it and clotting the wet hair with hail- 
stones. 

Father, was that you calling me ? Father ! I thought I heard 
you call me twice before ! Words never to be answered, those, upon 
the eartliside of the grave. The wind sweeps jeeringly over Father, 
whips him with the frayed ends of his dress and his jagged hair, tries 
to turn him where he lies stark on his back, and force his face 
towards the rising sun, that he may be shamed the more. A lull, and 
the wind is secret and prying with him ; lifts and lets fall a rag ; 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 165 

hides palpitating under another rag ; runs nimbly through his hair 
and beard. Then, in a rush, it cruelly taunts him. Father, was 
that you calling me? Was it you, the voiceless and the dead? 
Was it you, thus buffeted as you lie here in a heap ? W^as it you, 
thus baptised unto Death, with these flying impurities now flung 
upon your face? Why not speak. Father? Soaking into this 
filthy ground as you lie here, is your own shape. Did you never 
see such a shape soaked into your boat ? Speak, Father. Speak 
to us, the winds, the only listeners left you ! 

" Now see," said Mr. Inspector, after mature deliberation : kneel- 
ing on one knee beside the body, when they had stood looking down 
on the drowned man, as he had many a time looked down on many 
another man : "the way of it was this. Of course you gentlemen 
hardly failed to observe that he was towing by the neck and arms." 

They had helped to release the rope, and of course not. 

" And you will have observed before, and you will observe now, 
that this knot, which was drawn chock-tight round his neck by the 
strain of his own arms, is a slip-knot : " holding it up for demon- 
stration. 

Plain enough. 

"Likewise you will have observed how he had run the other 
end of this rope to his boat." 

It had the curves and indentations in it still, where it had been 
twined and bound. 

"Now see," said Mr. Inspector, "see how it works round upon 
him. It's a wild tempestuous evening when this man that was," 
stooping to wipe some hailstones out of his hair with an end of 
his own drowned jacket, " — there ! Now he's more like himself, 
though he's badly bruised, — when this man that was, rows out 
upon the river on his usual lay. He carries with him this coil of 
rope. He always carries with him this coil of rope. It's as well 
known to me as he was himself. Sometimes it lay in the bottom 
of his boat. Sometimes he hung it loose round his neck. He was 
a light-dresser was this man ; — you see ? " lifting the loose neck- 
erchief over his breast, and taking the opportunity of wiping the 
dead lips with it — "and when it was wet, or freezing, or blew 
cold, he would hang this coil of line round his neck. Last evening 
he does this. Worse for him ! He dodges about in his boat, does 
this man, till he gets chilled. His hands," taking up one of them, 
which dropped like a leaden weight, "get numbed. He sees some 
object that's in his way of business, floating. He makes ready to 
secure that object. He unwinds the end of his coil that he wants 
to take some turns on in his boat, and he takes turns enough on it 
to secure that it shan't run out. He makes it too secure, as it 



166 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

liappens. He is a little longer about this than usual, his hands 
being numbed. His object drifts up, before he is quite ready for 
it. He catches at it, thinks he'll make sure of the contents of the 
pockets anyhow, in case he should be parted from it, bends right 
over the stern, and in one of these heavy squalls, or in the cross- 
swell of two steamers, or in not being quite prepared, or through 
all or most or some, gets a lurch, overbalances, and goes head-fore- 
most overboard. Now see ! He can swim, can this man, and 
instantly he strikes out. But in such striking-out he tangles his 
arms, pulls strong on the slip-knot, and it runs home. The object 
he had expected to take in tow, floats by, and his own boat tows 
him dead, to where we found him, all entangled in his own line. 
You'll ask me how I make out about the pockets ? First, I'll tell 
you more ; there was silver in 'em. How do I make that out ? 
Simple and satisfactory. Because he's got it here." The lecturer 
held up the tightly clenched right hand. 

" What is to be done with the remains ? " asked Lightwood. 

"If you wouldn't object to standing by him half a minute, sir," 
was the reply, " I'll find the nearest of our men to come and take 
charge of him ; — I still call it him, you see," said Mr. Inspector, 
looking back as he w^ent, with a philosophical smile upon the force 
of habit. 

"Eugene," said Lightwood — and was about to add "we may 
wait at a little distance," when turning his head he found that no 
Eugene was there. 

He raised his voice and called " Eugene ! Holloa ! " But no 
Eugene replied. 

It was broad daylight now, and he looked about. But no 
Eugene was in all the view. 

Mr. Inspector speedily returning down the wooden stairs, with 
a police constable, Liglitwood asked him if he had seen his friend 
leave them 1 Mr. Inspector could not exactly say that he had seen 
him go, but had noticed that he was restless. 

" Singular and entertaining combination, sir, your friend." 

" I wish it had not been a part of his singular and entertaining 
combination to give me the slip under these dreary circumstances 
at this time of the morning," said Lightwood. " Can we get 
anything hot to drink ? " 

We could, and we did. In a public-house kitchen with a large 
fire. We got hot brandy and water, and it revived us wonderfully. 
Mr. Inspector having to Mr. Riderhood announced his official inten- 
tion of "keeping his eye upon him," stood him in a corner of the 
fireplace, like a wet umbrella, and took no further outward and 
visible notice of that honest man, except ordering a separate 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 167 

service of brandy and water for him : apparently out of the public 
funds. 

As Mortimer Lightwood sat before the blazing fire, conscious of 
drinking brandy and water then and there in his sleep, and yet at 
one and the same time drinking burnt sherry at the Six Jolly Fel- 
lowships, and lying under the boat on the river shore, and sitting 
in the boat that Riderhood rowed, and listening to the lecture 
recently concluded," and having to dine in the Temple with an un- 
known man who described himself as M. R. F. Eugene Gaffer Har- 
mon, and said he lived at Hailstorm, — as he passed through these 
curious vicissitudes of fatigue and slumber, arranged upon the scale 
of a dozen hours to the second, he became aware of answering aloud 
a comumnication of pressing importance that had never been made 
to him, and then turned it into a cough on beholding Mr. Inspec- 
tor. For he felt, with some natural indignation, that that func- 
tionary might otherwise suspect him of having closed his eyes, or 
wandered in his attention. 

" Here, just before us, you see," said Mr. Inspector. 

"/see," said Lightwood, with dignity. 

" And had hot brandy and water too, you see," said Mr. Inspec- 
tor, "and then cut off at a great rate." 

"Who?" said Lightwood. 

" Your friend, you know." 

"/know," he replied, again with dignity. 

After hearing, in a mist through which Mr. Inspector loomed 
vague and large, that the officer took upon himself to prepare the 
dead man's daughter for what had befallen in the night, and gener- 
ally that he took everything upon himself, Mortimer Lightwood 
stumbled in his sleep to a cab-stand, called a cab, and had entered 
the army and committed a capital military offence and been tried 
by court-martial and found guilty and had arranged his affairs and 
been marched off to be shot, before the door banged. 

Hard work rowing the cab through the City to the Temple, for 
a cup of from five to ten thousand pounds value, given by Mr. 
Boffin ; and hard work holding forth at that immeasurable length 
to Eugene (when he had been rescued with a rope from the run- 
ning pavement) for making off in that extraordinary manner ! But 
he offered such ample apologies, and was so very penitent, that 
when Lightwood got out of the cab, he gave the driver a particular 
charge to be careful of him. Which the driver (knowing there 
was no other fare left inside) stared at prodigiously. 

In short, the night's work had so exhausted and worn out this 
actor in it, that he had become a mere somnambulist. He was 
too tired to rest in his sleep, until he was even tired out of being 



168 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

too tired, and dropped into oblivion. Late in the afternoon he 
awoke, and in some anxiety sent round to Eugene's lodging hard 
by, to inquire if he were up yet ? 

Oh yes. he was up. In fact, he had not been to bed. He had 
just come home. And here he was, close following on the heels 
of the message. 

" Why, what bloodshot, draggled, dishevelled spectacle is this ! " 
cried Mortimer. 

" Are my feathers so very much rumpled ? " said Eugene, coolly 
going up to the looking-glass. "They are rather out of sorts. 
But consider. Such a night for plumage ! " 

" Such a night ? " repeated Mortimer. " What became of you 
in the morning 1 " 

" My dear fellow," said Eugene, sitting on his bed, " I felt that 
we had bored one another so long, that an unbroken continuance 
of those relations must inevitably terminate in our flying to oppo- 
site points of the earth. I also felt that I had committed every 
crime in the Newgate Calendar. So, for mingled considerations of 
friendship and felony, I took a walk." 



CHAPTER XV. 

TWO NEW SERVANTS. 

Mr. and Mrs. Boffin sat after breakfast, in the Bower, a prey 
to prosperity. Mr. Boffin's face denoted Care and Complication. 
Many disordered papers were before him, and he looked at them 
about as hopefully as an innocent civilian might look at a crowd of 
troops whom he was required at five minutes' notice to manoeuvre 
and review. He had been engaged in some attempts to make 
notes of these papers ; but being troubled (as men of his stamp 
often are) with an exceedingly distrustful and corrective thumb, 
that busy member had so often interposed to smear his notes, that 
they were little more legible than the various impressions of itself, 
which blurred his nose and forehead. It is curious to consider, in 
such a case as Mr. Boffin's, what a cheap article ink is, and how far 
it may be made to go. As a grain of musk will scent a drawer for 
many years, and still lose nothing appreciable of its original weight, 
so a halfpenny-worth of ink would blot Mr. Boffin to the roots of 
his hair and the calves of his legs, without inscribing a line on the 
paper before him, or appearing to diminish in the inkstand. 

Mr. Boffin was in such severe literary difficulties that his eyes 
were prominent and fixed, and his breathing was stertorous, when, 



OUE MUTUAL FRIEND. ' 169 

to the great relief of Mrs. Boffin, who observed these symptoms 
with alarm, the yard bell rang. 

"Who's that, I wonder?" said Mrs. Boffin. 

Mr. Boffin drew a long breath, laid down his pen, looked at his 
notes as doubting whether he had the pleasure of their acquaint- 
ance, and appeared, on a second perusal of their countenances, to 
be confirmed in his impression that he had not, when there was 
announced by the hammer-headed young man : 

"Mr. Kokesmith." 

" Oh ! " said Mr. Boffin. " Oh indeed ! Our and the Wilfers' 
Mutual Friend, my dear. Yes. Ask him to come in." 

Mr. Rokesmith appeared. 

"Sit down, sir," said Mr. Boffin, shaking hands with him. 
"Mrs. Boffin you're already acquainted with. Well, sir, I am 
rather unprepared to see you, for, to tell you the truth, I've been 
so busy with one thing and another, that I've not had time to turn 
your offer over." 

" That's apology for both of us ; for Mr. Boffin, and for me as 
well," said the smiling Mrs. Boffin. "But Lor! we can talk it 
over now ; can't us ? " 

Mr. Rokesmith bowed, thanked her, and said he hoped so. 

"Let me see then," resumed Mr. Boffin, with his hand to his 
chin. " It was Secretary that you named : wasn't it 1 " 

" I said Secretary," assented Mr. Rokesmith. 

"It rather puzzled me at the time," said Mr. Boffin, "and it 
rather puzzled me and Mrs. Boffin when we spoke of it afterwards, 
because (not to make a mystery of our belief) we have always 
believed a Secretary to be a piece of furniture, mostly of mahog- 
any, lined with green baize or leather, with a lot of little drawers 
in it. Now, you won't think I take a liberty when I mention that 
you certainly ain't that." 

Certainly not, said Mr. Rokesmith. But he had used the word 
in the sense of Steward. 

"Why, as to Steward, you see," returned Mr. Boffin, with his 
hand still to his chin, "the odds are that Mrs. Boffin and me may 
never go upon the water. Being both bad sailors, we should want 
a Steward if we did ; but there's generally one provided." 

Mr. Rokesmith again explained ; defining the duties he sought 
to undertake, as those of general superintendent, or manager, or 
overlooker, or man of business. 

" Now, for instance — come ! " said Mr. Boffin, in his pouncing 
way. " If you entered my employment, what would you do ? " 

" I would keep exact accounts of all the expenditure you sanc- 
tioned, Mr. Boffin. I would write your letters, under your direc- 



170 • OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

tion. I would transact your business with people in your pay or 
employment. I would," with a glance and a half-smile at the 
table, " arrange your papers " 

Mr. Boffin rubbed his inky ear, and looked at his wife. 

" — And so arrange them as to have them always in order for im- 
mediate reference, with a note of the contents of each outside it." 

" I tell you what," said Mr. Boffin, slowly crumpling his own 
blotted note in his hand; "if you'll turn to at these present 
papers, and see what you can make of 'em, I shall know better 
what I can make of you." 

No sooner said than done. Relinquishing his hat and gloves, 
Mr. Rokesmith sat down quietly at the table, arranged the open 
papers into an orderly heap, cast his eyes over each in succession, 
folded it, docketed it on the outside, laid it in a second heap, and, 
when that second heap was complete and the first gone, took from 
his pocket a piece of string and tied it together with a remarkably 
dexterous hand at a running curve and a loop. 

" Good ! " said Mr. Boffin. " Very good. Now let us hear 
what they're all about ; will you be so good ? " 

John Rokesmith read his abstracts aloud. They were all about 
the new house. Decorator's estimate, so much. Furniture esti- 
mate, so much. Estimate for furniture of offices, so much. Coach- 
maker's estimate, so much. Horse-dealer's estimate, so much. 
Harness-maker's estimate, so much. Goldsmith's estimate, so 
much. Total, so very much. Then came correspondence. Ac- 
ceptance of Mr. Boffin's offer of such a date, and to such an effect. 
Rejection of Mr. Boffin's proposal of such a date and to such an 
efiect. Concerning Mr. Boffin's scheme of such another date to 
such another effect. All compact and methodical. 

" Apple-pie order ! " said Mr. Boffin, after cliecking off each 
inscription with his hand, like a man beating time. " And what- 
ever you do with your ink, / can't think, for you're as clean as a 
whistle after it. Now, as to a letter. Let's," said Mr. Boffin, 
rubbing his hands in his pleasantly childish admiration, " let's try 
a letter next," 

" To whom shall it be addressed, Mr. Boffin 1 " 

"Anyone. Yourself." 

Mr. Rokesmith quickly wrote, and then read aloud : 

" ' Mr. Boffin presents his compliments to Mr. John Rokesmith, 
and begs to say that he has decided on giving Mr. John Rokesmith 
a trial in the capacity he desires to fill. Mr. Boffin takes Mr. John 
Rokesmith at his word, in postponing to some indefinite period the 
consideration of salary. It is quite understood that Mr. Boffin is 
in no way committed on that point. Mr. Boffin has merely to 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 171 

add, that he relies on Mr. John Rokesmith's assurance that he will 
be faithful and serviceable. Mr. John Rokesmith will please enter 
on his duties immediately.' " 

" Well ! Now, Noddy ! " cried Mrs. Boffin, clapping her hands, 
" that is a good one ! " 

Mr. Boffin was no less delighted; indeed, in his own bosom, he 
regarded both the composition itself and the device that had given 
birth to it, as a very remarkable monument of human ingenuity. 

"And I tell you, my deary," said Mrs. Boffin, "that if you don't 
close with Mr. Bokesmith now at once, and if you ever go a mud- 
dling yourself again with things never meant nor made for you, 
you'll have an apoplexy — besides iron-moulding your linen — and 
you'll break my heart." 

Mr. Boffin embraced his spouse for these Avords of wisdom, and 
then, congratulating John Rokesmith on the brilliancy of his achieve- 
ments, gave him his hand in pledge of their new relations. So did 
Mrs. Boffin. 

" Now," said Mr. Boffin, who, in his frankness, felt that it did not 
become him to have a gentleman in his employment five minutes, 
without reposing some confidence in him, " you must be let a little 
more into our affiiirs, Rokesmith. I mentioned to you, when I 
made your acquaintance, or I might better say when you made 
mine, that Mrs. Boffin's inclinations was setting in the way of 
Fashion, but that I didn't know how fashionable we might or 
might not grow. Well ! Mrs. Boffin has carried the day, and we're 
going in neck and crop for Fashion." 

" I rather inferred that, sir," replied John Rokesmith, " from the 
scale on which your new establishment is to be maintained." 

• "Yes," said Mr. Boffin, "it's to be a Spanker. The fact is, my 
literary man named to me that a house with which he is, as I may 
say, connected — in which he has an interest " 

"As property?" inquired John Rokesmith. 

" Why no," said Mr. Boffin, "not exactly that ; a sort of a family 
tie." 

"Association?" the Secretary suggested. 

" Ah ! " said Mr. Boffin. " Perhaps. Anyhow, he named to me 
that the house had a board up, ' This Eminently Aristocratic Man- 
sion to be let or sold.' Me and Mrs. Boffin went to look at it, and 
finding it beyond a doubt Eminently Aristocratic (though a trifle 
high and dull, which after all may be part of the same thing) took 
it. My literary man was so friendly as to drop into a charming 
piece of poetry on that occasion, in which he complimented Mrs. 
Boffin on coming into possession of— how did it go, my dear?" 

Mrs. Boffin replied : 



172 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" ' The gay, the gay and festive scene, 
The halls, the halls of dazzlmg light.' " 

" That's it. And it was made neater by there really being two 
halls in the house, a front 'un and a back 'un, besides the servants'. 
He likewise dropped into a very pretty piece of poetry to be sure, 
respecting the extent to which he would be willing to put himself 
out of the way to bring Mrs. Boffin round, in case she should ever 
get low in her spirits in the house. Mrs. Boffin has a wonderful 
memory. Will you repeat it, my dear 1 " 

Mrs. Boffin complied, by reciting the verses in which this oblig- 
ing offer had been made, exactly as she had received them. 

"Til tell thee how the maiden wept, Mrs. Boflin, 

" When her true love was slain, ma'am, 

" And how her broken spirit slept, Mrs. Boffin, 

" And never woke again, ma'am. 

" I'll tell thee (if agreeable to Mr. Boffin) how the steed drew nigh, 

" And left his lord afar ; 

•' And if my tale (which I hope Mr. Boffin might excuse) should make 

you sigh, 
" I'll strike the light guitar.' " 

" Correct to the letter ! " said Mr. Boffin. " And I consider that 
the poetry brings us both in, in a beautiful manner." 

The effect of the poem on the Secretary being evidently to aston- 
ish him, Mr. Boffin was confirmed in his high opinion of it, and was 
greatly pleased. 

"Now, you see, Rokesmith," he went on, "a literary man — 
with a wooden leg — is liable to jealousy. I shall therefore cast 
about for comfortable ways and means of not calling up Wegg's 
jealousy, but of keeping you in your department, and keeping him 
in his." 

"Lor!" cried Mrs. Boffin. "What I say is, the world's wide 
enough for all of us ! " 

"So it is, my dear," said Mr. Boffin, "when not literary. But 
when so, not so. And I am bound to bear in mind that I took 
Wegg on, at a time when I had no thought of being fashionable or 
of leaving the Bower. To let him feel himself anyways slighted 
now, would be to be guilty of a meanness, and to act like having 
one's head turned by the halls of dazzling light. Which Lord for- 
bid ! Rokesmith, what shall we say about your living in the 
house?" 

" In this house ? " 

" No, no. I have got other plans for this house. In the new 
house?" 



(3UR MUTUAL FRIEND. 173 

" That will be as you please, Mr. Boffin. I hold myself quite at 
your disposal. You know where I live at present." 

"Well ! " said Mr. Boffin, after considering the point; "suppose 
you keep as you are for the present, and we'll decide by-and-bye. 
You'll begin to take charge at once, of all that's going on in the 
new house, will you ? " 

" Most willingly. I will begin this very day. Will you give me 
the address ? " 

Mr. Boffin repeated it, and the Secretary wrote it down in his 
pocket-book. Mrs. Boffin took the opportunity of his being so 
engaged, to get a better observation of his face than she had yet 
taken. It impressed her in his favour, for she nodded aside to 
Mr. Boffin, " I like him." 

" I will see directly that everything is in train, Mr. Boffin." 

" Thank'ee. Being here, would you care at all to look round the 
Bower?" 

" I should greatly like it. I have heard so much of its story." 

" Come ! " said Mr. Boffin. And he and Mrs. Boffin led the way. 

A gloomy house the Bower, with sordid signs on it of having 
been, through its long existence as Harmony Jail, in miserly hold- 
ing. Bare of paint, bare of paper on the walls, bare of furniture, 
bare of experience of human life. Whatever is built by man for 
man's occupation, must, like natural creations, fulfil the intention 
of its existence, or soon perish. This old house had wasted more 
from desuetude than it would have wasted from use, twenty years 
for one. 

A certain leanness falls upon houses not sufficiently imbued with 
life (as if they were nourished upon it), which was very noticeable 
here. The staircase, balustrades, and rails, had a spare look — an 
air of being denuded to the bone — which the panels of the walls 
and the jambs of the doors and windows also bore. The scanty 
movables partook of it ; save for the cleanliness of the place, the 
dust into which they were all resolving would have lain thick on the 
floors ; and those, both in colour and in grain, ^vere worn like old 
faces that had kept much alone. 

The bedroom where the clutching old man had lost his grip on 
life, was left as he had left it. There was the old grisly four-post 
bedstead, without hangings, and with a jail-like upper rim of iron 
and spikes ; and there was the old patchwork counterpane. There 
was the tight-clenched old bureau, receding atop like a bad and 
secret forehead ; there was the cumbersome old table with twisted 
legs, at the bedside ; and there was the box upon it, in which the 
will had lain. A few old chairs with patchwork covers, under 
which the more precious stuff to be preserved had slowly lost its 



174 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

quality of colour without imparting pleasure to any eye, stood 
against the wall. A hard family likeness was on all these things. 

"The room was kept like this, Rokesmith," said Mr. Boffin, 
" against the son's return. In short, everything in the house was 
kept exactly as it came to us, for him to see and approve. Even 
now, nothing is changed but our own room below-stairs that you 
have just left. When the son came home for the last time in his 
life, and for the last time in his life saw his father, it was most 
likely in this room that they met." 

As the Secretary looked all round it, his eye rested on a side 
door in a corner. 

"Another staircase," said Mr. Boffin, unlocking the door, "lead- 
ing down into the yard. We'll go down this way, as you may 
like to see the yard, and it's all in the road. When the son 
was a little child, it was up and down these stairs that he 
mostly came and went to his father. He was very timid of his 
father. I've seen him sit on these stairs, in his shy way, poor 
child, many a time. Me and Mrs. Boffin have comforted him, 
sitting with his little book on these stairs often." 

"Ah! And his poor sister too," said Mrs. Boffin. "And 
here's the sunny place on the white wall where they one day 
measured one another. Their own little hands wrote up their 
names here, only with a pencil ; but the names are here still, and 
the poor dears gone for ever." 

" We must take care of the names, old lady," said Mr. Boffin. 
" We must take care of the names. They shan't be rubbed out in 
our time, nor yet, if we can help it, in the time after us. Poor 
little children ! " 

" Ah ! Poor little children ! " said Mrs. Boffin. 

They had opened the door at the bottom of the staircase giving on 
the yard, and they stood in the sunlight, looking at the scrawl of 
the two unsteady childish hands two or three steps up the staircase. 
There was something in this simple memento of a blighted childhood, 
and in the tenderness of Mrs. Boffin, that touched the Secretary. 

Mr. Boffin then showed his new man of business the Mounds, and 
his own particular Mound which had been left him as his legacy 
under the will before he acquired the whole estate. 

" It would have been enough for us," said Mr. Boffin, " in case 
it had pleased God to spare the last of those two young lives and 
sorrowful deaths. We didn't want the rest." 

At the treasures of the yard, and at the outside of the house, and 
at the detached building which. Mr. Boffin pointed out as the resi- 
dence of himself and his wife during tlie many years of their 
service, the Secretary looked with interest. It was not until Mr. 



OUR MUTUAL FllIEND. 175 

Boffin had shown him every wonder of the Bower twice over, that 
he remembered his having duties to discharge elsewhere. 

" You have no instructions to give me, Mr. Boffin, in reference to 
this place ? " 

" Not any, Eokesmith. No." 

"Might I ask, without seeming impertinent, whether you have 
any intention of selling it ? " 

"Certainly not. In remembrance of our old master, our old 
master's children, and our old service, me and Mrs. Boffin mean to 
keep it up as it stands." 

The Secretary's eyes glanced with so much meaning in them at 
the Mounds, that Mr. Boffin said, as if in answer to a remark : 

"Ay, ay, that's another thing. I may sell them, though I 
should be sorry to see the neighbourhood deprived of 'em too. It'll 
look but a poor dead flat without the Mounds. Still I don't say 
that I'm going to keep 'em always there, for the sake of the beauty 
of the landscape. There's no hurry about it ; that's all I say at 
present. I ain't a scholar in much, Rokesmith, but I'm a pretty 
fair scholar in dust. I can price the Mounds to a fraction, and 
I know how they can be best disposed of, and likewise that 
they take no harm by standing where they do. You'll look in to- 
morrow, will you be so- kind 1 " 

"Every day. And the sooner I can get you into your new 
house, complete, the better you will be pleased, sir ? " 

" Well, it ain't that I'm in a mortal hurry," said Mr. Boffin, 
" only when you do pay people for looking alive, it's as well to know 
that they are looking alive. Ain't that your opinion ? " 

" Quite ! " replied the Secretary ; and so withdrew. 

"Now," said Mr. Boffin to himself, subsiding into his regular 
series of turns in the yard, " if I can make it comfortable with 
Wegg, my aff'airs will be going smooth." 

The man of low cunning had, of course, acquired a mastery over 
the man of high simplicity. The mean man had, of course, got the 
better of the generous man. How long such conquests last, is 
another matter ; that they are achieved, is every day experienced, not 
even to be flourished away by Podsnappery itself. The undesigning 
Boffin had become so far immeshed by the wily Wegg that his 
mind misgave him he was a very designing man indeed in purposing 
to do more for Wegg. It seemed to him (so skilful was Wegg) 
that he was plotting darkly, when he was contriving to do the very 
thing that Wegg was plotting to get him to do. And thus, while 
he was mentally turning the kindest of kind faces on W^egg this 
morning, he was not absolutely sure but that he might somehow 
deserve the charge of turning his back on him. 



176 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

For these reasons Mr. Boffin passed but anxious hours until 
evening came, and with it Mr. Wegg, stumping leisurely to the 
Eoman Empire. At about this period Mr. Boffin had become 
profoundly interested in the fortunes of a great military leader 
known to him as Bully Sawyers, but perhaps better known to fame 
and easier of identification by the classical student, under the less 
Britannic name of Belisarius. Even this general's career paled in 
interest for Mr. Boffin before the clearing of his conscience with 
Wegg ; and hence, when that literary gentleman had according to 
custom eaten and drunk until he was all a-glow, and when he took 
up his book with the usual chirping introduction, " And now, Mr. 
Boffin, sir, we'll decline and we'll fall ! " Mr. Boffin stopped him. 

"You remember, Wegg, when I first told you that I wanted to 
make a sort of oflfer to you 1 " 

" Let me get on my considering cap, sir," replied that gentleman, 
turning the open book face downward. " When you first told me 
that you wanted to make a sort of offer to me ? Now let me 
think " (as if there were the least necessity). " Yes, to be sure I 
do, Mr. Boffin. It was at my corner. To be sure it was ! You 
had first asked me whether I liked your name, and Candour had 
compelled a reply in the negative case. I little thought then, 
sir, how familiar that name would come to be ! " 

" I hope it will be more familiar still, Wegg." 

" Do you, Mr. Boffin ? Much obliged to you, I'm sure. Is it 
your pleasure, sir, that we decline and we fall 1 " with a feint of 
taking up the book. 

" Not just yet awhile, Wegg. In fact, I have got another off'er 
to make you." 

Mr. Wegg (who had had nothing else in his mind for several 
nights) took off his spectacles with an air of bland surprise. 

" And I hope you'll like it, Wegg." 

" Thank you, sir," returned that reticent individual. " I hope 
it may prove so. On all accounts, I am sure." (This, as a phil- 
anthropic aspiration.) 

"What do you think," said Mr. Boffin, "of not keeping a stall, 
Wegg?" 

" I think, sir," replied Wegg, " that I should like to be shown 
the gentleman prepared to make it worth my w^hile ! " 

" Here he is," said Mr. Boffin. 

Mr. Wegg was going to say. My Benefactor, and had said My 
Bene, when a grandiloquent change came over him. 

" No, Mr. Boffin, not you, sir. Anybody but you. Do not fear, 
Mr. Boffin, that I shall contaminate the premises which your gold 
has bought, with my lowly pursuits. I am aware, sir, that it 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 177 

would not become me to carry on my little traffic under the win- 
dows of your mansion. I have already thought of that, and taken 
my measures. No need to be bought out, sir. Would Stepney 
Fields be considered intrusive ? If not remote enough, I can go 
remoter. In the words of the poet's song, which I do not quite 
remember : 

Thrown on the wide world, doom'd to wander and roam, 
Bereft of my parents, bereft of a home, 
A stranger to something and what's his name joy, 
Behold little Edmund the poor Peasant boy. 

— And equally," said Mr. Wegg, repairing the want of direct 
application in the last line, "behold myself on a similar footing ! " 

"Now, Wegg, Wegg, Wegg," remonstrated the excellent Boffin. 
"You are too sensitive." 

"I know I am, sir," returned Wegg, with obstinate magnanim- 
ity. " I am acquainted with my faults. I always was, from a 
child, too sensitive." 

" But listen," pursued the Golden Dustman ; " hear me out, 
Wegg. You have taken it into your head that I mean to pension 
you off." 

" True, sir," returned Wegg, still with an obstinate magnanimity. 
" I am acquainted with my faults. Far be it from me to deny 
them. I have taken it into my head." 

" But I donH mean it." 

The assurance seemed hardly as comforting to Mr. Wegg, as 
Mr. Boffin intended it to be. Indeed, an appreciable elongation 
of his visage might have been observed as he replied : 

"Don't you, indeed, sir?" 

"No," pursued Mr. Boffin; "because that would express, as I 
understand it, that you were not going to do anything to deserve 
your money. But you are ; you are." 

" That, sir," replied Mr. Wegg, cheering up bravely, " is quite 
another pair of shoes. Now, my independence as a man is again 
elevated. Now, I no longer 

Weep for the hour. 

When to Boffins's Bower, 

The Lord of the valley with offers came ; 

Neither does the moon hide her light 

From the heavens to-night. 

And weep behind her clouds o'er any individual in the present 

Company's shame. 

— Please to proceed, Mr. Boffin." 

" Thank'ee, Wegg, both for your confidence in me and for your 

N 



178 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

frequent dropping into poetry ; both of which is friendly. Well, 
then ; my idea is, that you should give up your stall, and that I 
should put you into the Bower here, to keep it for us. It's a 
pleasant spot ; and a man with coals and candles and a pound a 
week might be in clover here." 

"Hem ! Would that man, sir- — we will say that man, for the 
purposes of argueyment ; " Mr. Wegg made a smiling demonstration 
of great perspicuity here ; " would that man, sir, be expected to 
throw any other capacity in, or would any other capacity be con- 
sidered extra ? Now let us (for the purposes of argueyment) sup- 
pose that man to be engaged as a reader : say (for the purposes of 
argueyment) in the evening. Would that man's pay as a reader 
in the evening, be added to the other amount, which, adopting 
your language, we will call clover ; or would it merge into that 
amount, or clover 1 " 

" Well," said Mr. Boffin, " I suppose it would be added." 
" I suppose it would, sir. You are right, sir. Exactly my own 
views, Mr. Boffin." Here Wegg rose, and balancing himself on 
his wooden leg, fluttered over his prey with extended hand. 
" Mr. Boffin, consider it done. Say no more, sir, not a word more. 
My stall and I are for ever parted. The collection of ballads will 
in future be reserved for private study, with the object of making 
poetry tributary " — Wegg was so proud of having found this w^ord, 
that he said it again, with a capital letter — " Tributary to friend- 
ship. Mr. Boffin, don't allow yourself to be made uncomfortable 
by the pang it gives me to part from my stock and stall. Similar 
emotion was undergone by my own father when promoted for his 
merits from his occupation as a waterman to a situation under 
Government. His Christian name was Thomas. His words at 
the time (I was then an infant, but so deep was their impression 
on me, that I committed them to memory) were : 

Then farewell, my trim-built wherry, 
Oars and coat and badge farewell ! 
Never more at Chelsea Ferry 
Shall your Thomas take a spell ! 

— My father got over it, Mr. Boffin, and so shall I." 

While delivering these valedictory observations, Wegg contin- 
ually disappointed Mr. Boffin of his hand by flourishing it in the 
air. He now darted it at his patron, who took it, and felt his 
mind relieved of a great weight : observing that as they had ar- 
ranged their joint affairs so satisfactorily, he would now be glad to 
look into those of Bully Sawyers. Which, indeed, had been left 
overnight in a very unpromising posture, and for whose impending 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 179 

expedition against the Persians the weather had been by no means 
favourable all day. 

Mr. Wegg resumed his spectacles therefore. But Sawyers was 
not to be of the party that night ; for, before Wegg had found his 
place, Mrs. Boffin's tread was heard upon the stairs, so unusually 
heavy and hurried, that Mr. Boffin would have started up at the 
sound, anticipating some occurrence much out of the common 
course, even though she had not also called to him in an agitated 
tone. 

Mr. Boffin hurried out, and found her on the dark staircase, 
panting, with a lighted candle in her hand. 

" What's the matter, my dear ? " 

" I don't know ; I don't know ; but I wish you'd come up-stairs." 

Much surprised, Mr. Boffin went up-stairs and accompanied Mrs. 
Boffin into their own room : a second large room on the same floor 
as the room in which the late proprietor had died. Mr. Boffin 
looked all round him, and saw nothing more unusual than various 
articles of folded linen on a large chest, which Mrs. Boffin had been 
sorting. 

"What is it, my dear? Why, you're frightened! You 
frightened ? " 

"I am not one of that sort certainly," said Mrs. Boffin, as she 
sat down in a chair to recover herself, and took her husband's arm ; 
" but it's very strange ! " 

" What is, my dear 1 " 

" Noddy, the faces of the old man and the two children are all 
over the house to-night." 

"My dear?" exclaimed Mr. Boffin. But not without a certain 
uncomfortable sensation gliding down his back. 

"I know it must sound foolish, and yet it is so." 

" Where did you think you saw them 1 " 

"I don't know that I think I saw them anywhere. I felt 
them." 

" Touched them ? " 

" No. Felt them in the air. I was sorting those things on 
the chest, and not thinking of the old man or the children, but 
singing to myself, when all in a moment I felt there was a face 
growing out of the dark." 

" What face 1 " asked her husband, looking about him. 

" For a moment it was the old man's, and then it got younger. 
For a moment it was both the children's, and then it got older. 
For a moment it was a strange face, and then it was all the faces," 

"And then it was gone?" 

" Yes ; and then it was gone," 



180 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Where were you then, old lady ? " 

" Here, at the chest. Well, I got the better of it, and went on 
sorting, and went on singing to myself. ' Lor ! ' I says, ' I'll 
think of something else — something comfortable — and put it 
out of my head.' So I thought of the new house and Miss Bella 
Wilfer, and was thinking at a great rate with that sheet there in my 
hand, when, all of a sudden, the faces seemed to be hidden in 
among the folds of it, and I let it drop." 

As it still lay on the floor where it had fallen, Mr. Boffin picked 
it up and laid it on the chest. 

"And then you ran down-stairs ?" 

"No. I thought I'd try another room, and shake it off. I says 
to myself, ' I'll go and walk slowly up and down the old man's 
room three times, from end to end, and then I shall have conquered 
it.' I went in with the candle in my hand, but the moment I came 
near the bed, the air got thick with them." 

" With the faces ? " 

"Yes, and I even felt they were in the dark behind the side-door, 
and on the little staircase, floating away into the yard. Then, I 
called you." 

Mr. Boffin, lost in amazement, looked at Mrs. Boffin. Mrs. 
Boffin, lost in her own fluttered inability to make this out, looked 
at Mr. Boffin. 

"I think, my dear," said the Golden Dustman, " I'll at once get 
rid of Wegg for the night, because he's coming to inhabit the 
Bower, and it might be put into his head or somebody else's, if he 
heard this and it got about, that the house is haunted. Whereas 
we know better. Don't we 1 " 

" I never had the feeling in the house before," said Mrs. Boffin ; 
" and I have been about it alone at all hours of the night. I have 
been in the house when Death was in it, and I have been in tlie 
house when Murder was a new part of its adventures, and I never 
had a fright in it yet." 

"And won't again, my dear," said Mr. Boffin. "Depend upon 
it, it comes of thinking and dwelling on that dark spot." 

" Yes ; but why didn't it come before ? " asked Mrs. Boffin. 

This draft on Mr. Boffin's philosophy could only be met by that 
gentleman with the remark that everything that is at all, must 
begin at some time. Then, tucking his wife's arm under his own, 
that she might not be left by herself to be troubled again, he 
descended to release Wegg. Who, being something drowsy after his 
plentiful repast, and constitutionally of a shirking temperament, was 
well enough pleased to stump away, without doing what he had 
come to do, and was paid for doing. 



OUE MUTUAL FRIEND. 181 

Mr. Boffin then put on his hat, and Mrs. Boffin her shawl ; and 
the i^air, further provided with a bunch of keys and a lighted lan- 
tern, went all over the dismal house — dismal everywhere, but in 
their own two rooms — from cellar to cockloft. Not resting satis- 
fied with giving that much chase to Mrs. Boffin's fancies, they pur- 
sued them into the yard and outbuildings, and under the Mounds. 
And setting the lantern, when all was done, at the foot of one of 
the Mounds, they comfortably trotted to and fro for an evening 
walk, to the end that the murky cobwebs in Mrs. Boffin's brain 
might be blown away. 

" There, my dear ! " said Mr. Boffin when they came into supper. 
"That was the treatment, you see. Completely worked round, 
haven't you ? " 

"Yes, deary," said Mrs. Boffin, laying aside her shawl. "I'm 
not nervous any more. I'm not a bit troubled now. I'd go any- 
where about the house the same as ever. But " 

"Eh!" said Mr. Boffin. 

" But I've only to shut my eyes." 

" And what then 1 " 

"Why then," said Mrs. Boffin, speaking with her eyes closed, 
and her left hand thoughtfully touching her brow, "then, there 
they are ! The old man's face, and it gets younger. The two 
children's faces, and they get older. A face that I don't know. 
And then all the faces ! " 

Opening her eyes again, and seeing her husband's face across the 
table, she leaned forward to give it a pat on the cheek, and sat 
down to supper, declaring it to be the best face in the world. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MINDERS AND REMINDERS. 

The Secretary lost no time in getting to work, and his vigilance 
and method soon set their mark on the Golden Dustman's affairs. 
His earnestness in determining to understand the length and breadth 
and depth of every piece of work submitted to him by his employer, 
was as special as his despatch in transacting it. He accepted no 
information or explanation at second hand, but made himself the 
master of everything confided to him. 

One part of the Secretary's conduct, underlying all the rest, 
might have been mistrusted by a man with a better knowledge of 
men than the Golden Dustman had. The Secretary was as far 
from being inquisitive or intrusive as Secretary could be, but noth- 



182 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

ing less tliuii a complete understanding of the whole of the affairs 
would content him. It soon became apparent (from the knowledge 
with which he set out) that he must have been to the office where 
the Harmon will was registered, and must have read the will. He 
anticipated Mr. Boffin's consideration whether he should be advised 
with on this or that topic, by showing that he already knew of 
it and understood it. He did this with no attempt at conceal- 
ment, seeming to be satisfied that it was part of his duty to have 
prepared himself at all attainable points for its utmost discharge. 

This might — let it be repeated — have awakened some little vague 
mistrust in a man more worldly-wise than the Golden Dustman. 
On the other hand, the Secretary was discerning, discreet, and 
silent, though as zealous as if the affairs had been his own. He 
showed no love of patronage or the command of money, but 
distinctly preferred resigning both to Mr. Boffin. If, in his limited 
sphere, he sought power, it was the power of knowledge ; the 
power derivable from a perfect comprehension of his business. 

As on the Secretary's face there was a nameless cloud, so on his 
manner there was a shadow equally indefinable. It was not that 
he was embarrassed, as on that first night with the Wilfer family ; 
he was habitually unembarrassed now, and yet the something 
remained. It was not that his manner was bad, as on that 
occasion ; it was now very good, as being modest, gracious, and 
ready. Yet the something never left it. It has been written of 
men who have undergone a cruel captivity, or who have passed 
through a terrible strait, or who in self-preservation have killed 
a defenceless fellow-creature, that the record thereof has never 
faded from their countenances until they died. Was there any 
such record here 1 

He established a temporary office for himself in the new house, 
and all went well under his hand, with one singular exception. 
He manifestly objected to communicate with Mr. Boffin's solicitor. 
Two or three times, when there was some slight occasion for his 
doing so, he transferred the task to Mr. Boffin ; and his evasion of 
it soon became so curiously apparent, that Mr. Boffin spoke to him 
on the subject of his reluctance. 

" It is so," the Secretary admitted. " I would rather not." 

Had he any personal objection to Mr. Lightwood ? 

" I don't know him." 

Had he suffered from law-suits ? 

" Not more than other men," was his short answer. 

Was he prejudiced against the race of lawyers ? 

" No. But while I am in your employment, sir, I would rather 
be excused from going between the lawyer and' the client. Of 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 183 

course if you press it, Mr. Boffin, I am ready to comply. But I 
should take it as a great favour if you would not press it without 
urgent occasion." 

Now, it could not be said that there was, urgent occasion, for 
Lightwood retained no other affairs in his hands than such as still 
lingered and languished about the undiscovered criminal, and such 
as arose out of the purchase of the house. Many other matters 
that might have travelled to him, now stopped short at the 
Secretary, under whose administration they were far more ex- 
peditiously and satisfactorily disposed of than they would have 
been if they had got into Young Blight's domain. This the 
Golden Dustman quite understood. Even the matter immediately 
in hand was of very little moment as requiring personal appearance 
on the Secretary's part, for it amounted to no more than this : — 
The death of Hexam rendering the sweat of the honest man's brow 
unprofitable, the honest man had shufflingly declined to moisten his 
brow for nothing, with that severe exertion which is known in 
legal circles as swearing your way through a stone wall. Conse- 
quently, that new light had gone sputtering out. But, the airing 
of the old facts had led some one concerned to suggest that it would 
be well before they were reconsigned to their gloomy shelf — now 
probably for ever — to induce or compel that Mr. Julius Handford 
to reappear and be questioned. And all traces of Mr. Julius 
Handford being lost, Lightwood now referred to his client for 
authority to seek him through public advertisement. 

" Does your objection go to writing to Lightwood, Rokesmith ? " 

" Not in the least, sir." 

" Then perhaps you'll write him a line, and say he is free to do 
what he likes. I don't think it promises." 

"/don't think it promises," said the Secretary. 

" Still, he may do what he likes." 

" I will write immediately. Let me thank you for so considerately 
yielding to my disinclination. It may seem less unreasonable, if I 
avow to you that although I don't know Mr. Lightwood, I have a 
disagreeable association connected with him. It is not his fault ; 
he is not at all to blame for it, and does not even know my name." 

Mr. Boffin dismissed the matter with a nod or two. The letter 
was written, and next day Mr. Julius Handford was advertised for. 
He was requested to place himself in communication with Mr. 
Mortimer Lightwood, as a possible means of furthering the ends 
of justice, and a reward was offered to any one acquainted with his 
whereabout who would communicate the same to the said Mr. 
Mortimer Lightwood at his office in the Temple. Every day for 
six weeks this advertisement appeared at the head of all the news- 



184 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

papers, and every day for six weeks the Secretary, when he saw it, 
said to himself, in the tone in which he had said to his employer, — 
" / don't think it promises ! " 

Among his first occupations the pursuit of that orphan wanted 
by Mrs. Boffin held a conspicuous place. From the earliest moment 
of his engagement he showed a particular desire to please her, and 
knowing her to have this object at heart, he followed it up with 
unwearying alacrity and interest. 

Mr. and Mrs. Milvey had found their search a difficult one. 
Either an eligible orphan was of the wrong sex (which almost 
always happened) or was too old, or too young, or too sickly, or 
too dirty, or too much accustomed to the streets, or too likely to 
run away ; or, it was found impossible to complete the philanthropic 
transaction without buying the orphan. For, the instant it became 
known that anybody wanted the orphan, up started some affection- 
ate relative of the orphan who put a price upon the orphan's head. 
The suddenness of an orphan's rise in the market was not to be 
paralleled by the maddest records of the Stock Exchange. He 
would be at five thousand per cent, discount out at nurse making 
a mud pie at nine in the morning, and (being inquired for) would 
go up to five thousand per cent, premium before noon. The market 
was "rigged," in various artful ways. Counterfeit stock got into 
circulation. Parents boldly represented themselves as dead, and 
brought their orphans with them. Genuine orphan-stock was 
surreptitiously withdrawn from the market. It being an- 
nounced, by emissaries posted for the purpose, that Mr. and 
Mrs. Milvey were coming down the court, orphan script would be 
instantly concealed, and production refused, save on a condition 
usually stated by the brokers as a " gallon of beer." Likewise, 
fluctuations of a wild and South-Sea nature were occasioned by 
orphan-holders keeping back, and then rushing into the market a 
dozen together. But, the uniform principle at the root of all these 
various operations was bargain and sale ; and that principle could 
not be recognised by Mr. and Mrs. Milvey. 

At length tidings were received by the Reverend Frank of a 
charming orphan to be found at Brentford. One of the deceased 
parents (late his parishioners) had a poor widowed grandmother in 
that agreeable town, and she, Mrs. Betty Higden, had carried off 
the orphan with maternal care, but could not afford to keep him. 

The Secretary proposed to Mrs. Boffin, cither to go down himself 
and take a preliminary survey of this orphan, or to drive her 
down, that she might at once form her own opinion. Mrs. Boffin 
preferring the latter course, they set off one morning in a hired 
phaeton, conveying the hammer-headed young man behind them. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 185 

The abode of Mrs. Betty Higden was not easy to find, lying in 
such complicated back settlements of muddy Brentford that they 
left their equipage at the sign of the Three Magpies, and went in 
search of it on foot. After many inquiries and defeats, there was 
pointed out to them in a lane, a very small cottage residence, with 
a board across the open doorway, hooked on to which board by the 
armpits was a young gentleman of tender years, angling for mud 
with a headless wooden horse and line. In this young sportsman, 
distinguished by a crisply curling auburn head and a bluff counte- 
nance, the Secretary descried the orphan. 

It unfortunately happened as they quickened their pace, that 
the orphan, lost to considerations of personal safety in the ardour 
of the moment, overbalanced himself and toppled into the street. 
Being an orphan of a chubby conformation, he then took to rolling, 
and had rolled into the gutter before they could come up. From 
the gutter he was rescued by John Rokesmith, and thus the first 
meeting with Mrs. Higden was inaugurated by the awkward cir- 
cumstance of their being in possession — one would say at first 
sight unlawful possession — of the orphan upside down and purple 
in the countenance. The board across the doorway too, acting as 
a trap equally for the feet of Mrs. Higden coming out, and the 
feet of Mrs. Boffin and John Rokesmith going in, greatly increased 
the difficulty of the situation : to which the cries of the orphan 
imparted a lugubrious and inhuman character. 

At first, it was impossible to explain, on account of the orphan's 
" holding his breath : " a most terrific proceeding, superinducing, 
in the orphan, lead-colour rigidity and a deadly silence, compared 
with which his cries were music yielding the height of enjoyment. 
But as he gradually recovered, Mrs. Boffin gradually introduced 
herself, and smiling peace was gradually wooed back to Mrs. Betty 
Higden's home. 

It was then perceived to be a small home with a large mangle 
in it, at the handle of which machine stood a very long boy, with 
a very little head, and an open mouth of disproportionate capacity 
that seemed to assist his eyes in staring at the visitors. In a corner 
below the mangle, on a couple of stools, sat two very little chil- 
dren : a boy and a girl ; and when the very long boy, in an inter- 
val of staring, took a turn at the mangle, it was alarming to see 
how it lunged itself at those two innocents, like a catapult designed 
for their destruction, harmlessly retiring when Avithin an inch of 
their heads. The room was clean and neat. It had a brick floor, 
and a window of diamond panes, and a flounce hanging below the 
chimney-piece, and strings nailed from bottom to top outside the 
window on which scarlet-beans were to grow in the coming season 







MRS. UOFFIN DISCOVERS AN ORPHAN. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 187 

if the Fates were propitious. However propitious they might have 
been in the seasons that were gone, to Betty Higden in the matter 
of beans, they had not been very favourable in the matter of coins ; 
for it was easy to see that she was poor. 

She was one of those old women, was Mrs. Betty Higden, who by 
dint of an indomitable purpose and a strong constitution fight out 
many years, though each year has come with its new knock-down 
blows fresh to the fight against her, wearied by it ; an active old 
woman, with a bright dark eye and a resolute face, yet quite a ten- 
der creature too ; not a logically-reasoning woman, but God is good, 
and hearts may count in Heaven as high as heads. 

"Yes sure!" said she, when the business was opened, "Mrs. 
Milvey had the kindness to write to me, ma'am, and I got Sloppy 
to read it. It was a pretty letter. But she's an affable lady." 

The visitors glanced at the long boy, who seemed to indicate by 
a broader stare of his mouth and eyes that in him Sloppy stood 
confessed. 

" For I ain't, you must know," said Betty, " much of a hand at 
reading writing-hand, though I can read my Bible and most print. 
And I do love a newspaper. You mightn't think it, but Sloppy 
is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different 
voices." 

The visitors again considered it a point of politeness to look at 
Sloppy, who, looking at them, suddenly threw back his head, ex- 
tended his mouth to its utmost width, and laughed loud and long. 
At this the two innocents, with their brains in that apparent 
danger, laughed, and Mrs. Higden laughed, and the orphan laughed, 
and then the visitors laughed. Which was more cheerful than 
intelligible. 

Then Sloppy seeming to be seized with an industrious mania or 
fury, turned to at the mangle, and impelled it at the heads of the 
innocents with such a creaking and rumbling, that Mrs. Higden 
stopped him. 

" The gentlefolks can't hear themselves speak. Sloppy. Bide a 
bit, bide a bit ! " 

"Is that the dear child in your lap?" said Mrs. Boffin. 

" Yes, ma'am, this is Johnny." 

"Johnny, too!" cried Mrs. Boffin, turning to the Secretary; 
" already Johnny ! Only one of the two names left to give him ! 
He's a pretty boy." 

With his chin tucked down in his shy, childish manner, he was 
looking furtively at Mrs. Boffin out of his blue eyes, and reaching 
his fat dimpled hand up to the lips of the old woman, who was 
kissing it by times. 



188 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Yes, ma'am, he's a pretty boy, he's a dear (lading boy, he's the 
child of my own last left daughter's daughter. But she's gone the 
way of all the rest." 

"Those are not his brother and sister?" said Mrs. Boflfin. 

" Oh, dear no, ma'am. Those are Minders." 

" Minders ? " the Secretary repeated. 

"Left to be Minded, sir. I keep a Minding-School. I can 
take only three, on account of the mangle. But I love children, 
and Four-pence a week is Four-pence. Come here, Toddles and 
Poddies." 

Toddles w^as the pet name of the boy ; Poddies of the girl. At 
their little unsteady pace, they came across the floor, hand-in-hand, 
as if they were traversing an extremely difficult road intersected 
by brooks, and, when they had had their heads patted by Mrs. 
Betty Higden, made lunges at the orphan, dramatically represent- 
ing an attempt to bear him, crowing, into captivity and slavery. 
All the three children enjoyed this to a delightful extent, and the 
sympathetic Sloppy again laughed long and loud. When it was 
discreet to stop the play, Betty Higden said, "Go to your seats. 
Toddles and Poddies," and they returned hand-in-hand across coun- 
try, seeming to find the brooks rather swollen by the late rains. 

" And Master — or Mister — Sloppy ? " said the Secretary, in 
doubt whether he was man, boy, or what. 

"A love-child," returned Betty Higden, dropping her voice; 
" parents never known ; found in the street. He was brought up 
in the " with a shiver of repugnance, " the House." 

" The Poor-house ? " said the Secretary. 

Mrs. Higden set that resolute old face of hers, and darkly 
nodded yes. 

" You dislike the mention of it." 

"Dislike the mention of it?" answered the old woman. "Kill 
me sooner than take me there. Throw this pretty child under 
cart-horses' feet and a loaded waggon, sooner than take him there. 
Come to us and find us all a dying, and set a light to us all where 
we lie, and let us all blaze away with the house into a heap of 
cinders, sooner than move a corpse of us there ! " 

A surprising spirit in this lonely woman after so many years of 
hard working, and hard living, my Lords and Gentlemen and 
Honourable Boards ! What is it that we call it in our grandiose 
speeches? British independence, rather perverted? Is that, or 
something like it, the ring of the cant ? 

"Do I never read in the newspapers," said the dame, fondling 
the child — "God help me and the like of me ! — how the worn-out 
people that do come down it that, get driven from post to pillar 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 189 

and pillar to post, a-purpose to tire them out ! Do I never read 
how they are put off, put off, put off — how they are grudged, 
grudged, grudged the shelter, or the doctor, or the drop of physic, 
or the bit of bread ? Do I never read how they grow heartsick of 
it and give it up, after having let themselves drop so low, and how 
they after all die out for want of help ? Then I say, I hope I can 
die as well as another, and I'll die without that disgrace." 

Absolutely impossible, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable 
Boards, by any stretch of legislative wisdom to set these perverse 
people right in their logic ? 

"Johnny, my pretty," continued old Betty, caressing the child, 
and rather mourning over it than speaking to it, "your old Granny 
Betty is nigher fourscore year than threescore and ten. She never 
begged nor had a penny of the Union money in all her life. She 
paid scot and she paid lot when she had money to pay ; she worked 
when she could, and she starved when she must. You pray that 
your Granny may have strength enough left her at the last (she's 
strong for an old one, Johnny), to get up from her bed and run 
and hide herself, and swown to death in a hole, sooner than fall into 
the hands of those Cruel Jacks we read of, that dodge and drive, 
and worry and weary, and scorn and shame, the decent poor." 

A brilliant success, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable 
Boards, to have brought it to this in the minds of the best of the 
poor ! Under submission, might it be worth thinking of, at any 
odd time 1 

The fright and abhorrence that Mrs. Betty Higden smoothed out 
of her strong face as she ended this diversion, showed how seriously 
she had meant it. 

"And does he work for you?" asked the Secretary, gently bring- 
ing the discourse back to Master or Mister Sloppy. 

"Yes," said Betty with a good-humoured smile and nod of the 
head. "And well too." 

" Does he live here ? " 

" He lives more here than anywhere. He was thought to be no 
better than a Natural, and first come to m.e as a Minder. I made 
interest with Mr. Blogg the Beadle to have him as a Minder, seeing 
him by chance up at church, and thinking I might do something 
with him. For he was a weak rickety creetur then." 

" Is he called by his right name ? " 

" Why, you see, speaking quite correctly, he has no right name. 
I always understood he took his name from being found on a Sloppy 
night." 

" He seems an amiable fellow." 

" Bless you, sir, there's not a bit of him," returned Betty, "that's 



190 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

not amiable. So you may judge how amiable he is, by running 
your eye along his height." 

Of an ungainly make was Sloppy. Too mucli of him longwise, 
too little of him broadwise, and too many sharp angles of him 
anglewise. One of those shambling male human creatures born to 
be indiscreetly candid in the revelation of buttons ; every button he 
had about him glaring at the public to a quite pi'eternatural extent. 
A considerable capital of knee and elbow and wrist and ankle, had 
Sloppy, and he didn't know how to dispose of it to the best advan- 
t^gOf, but was always investing it in wrong securities, and so getting 
himself into embarrassed circumstances. Full-Private IN'^umber One 
in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file of life, was Sloppy, 
and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true to the Colours. 

"And now,." ^aid Mrs. Boffin, "concerning Johnny." 

As Johnny, with his chin tucked in and his lips pouting, reclined 
in Betty's lap, concentrating his blue eyes on the visitors and shad- 
ing them from observation with a dimpled arm, old Betty took one 
of his fresh fiit hands in her withered right, and fell to gently beat- 
ing it on her withered left. 

"Yes, ma'am. Concerning Johnny." 

"If you trust the dear child to me," said Mrs. Boffin, with a 
face inviting trust, " he shall have the best of homes, the best of 
care, the best of education, the best of friends. Please God I will 
be a true good mother to him ! " 

"I am thankful to you, ma'am, and the dear child would be 
thankful if he was old enough to understand." Still lightly beat- 
ing the little hand upon her own. " I wouldn't stand in the dear 
child's light, not if I had all my life before me, instead of a very 
little of it. But I hope you won't take it ill that I cleave to the 
child closer than words can tell, for he's the last living thing left 
me." 

" Take it ill, my dear soul ? Is it likely ? And you so tender of 
him as to bring him home here ! " 

" I have seen," said Betty, still with that Hght beat upon her 
hard rough hand, "so many of them on my lap. And they are all 
gone but this one ! I am ashamed to seem so selfish, but I don't 
really mean it. It'll be the making of his fortune, and he'll be a 
gentleman when I am dead. I — I — don't know what comes 
over me. I — try against it. Don't notice me ! " The light beat 
stopped, the resolute mouth gave way, and the fine strong old face 
broke up into weakness and tears. 

Now, greatly to the relief of the visitors, the emotional Sloppy 
no sooner beheld his patroness in this condition, than, throwing 
back his head and throwing open his mouth, he lifted up his voice 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 191 

and bellowed. This alarming note of something wrong instantly 
terrified Toddles and Poddies, who were no sooner heard to roar 
surprisingly, than Johnny, curving himself the wrong way and strik- 
ing out at Mrs. Boffin with a pair of indifferent shoes, became a 
prey to despair. The absurdity of the situation put its pathos to 
the rout. Mrs. Betty Higden was herself in a moment, and 
brought them all to order with that speed, that Sloppy, stopping 
short in a polysyllabic bellow, transferred his energy to the 
mangle, and had taken several penitential turns before he could 
be stopped. 

" There, there, there ! " said Mrs. Boffin, almost regarding her 
kind self as the most ruthless of women. " Nothing is going to be 
done. Nobody need be frightened. We're all comfortable; ain't 
we, Mrs. Higden 1 " 

" Sure and certain we are," returned Betty. 

" And there really is no hurry, you know," said Mrs. Boffin, in a 
lower voice. " Take time to think of it, my good creature ! " 

" Don't you fear i7ie no more, ma'am," said Betty ; "I thought 
of it for good yesterday. I don't know what come over me just 
now, but it'll never come again." 

"Well, then, Johnny shall have more time to think of it," 
returned Mrs. Boffin ; " the pretty child shall have time to get 
used to it. And you'll get him more used to it, if you think well 
of it ; won't you ? " 

Betty undertook that, cheerfully and readily. 

"Lor," cried Mrs. Boffin, looking radiantly about her, "we want 
to make everybody happy, not dismal ! — And perhaps you wouldn't 
mind letting me know how used to it you begin to get, and how it 
all goes on ? " 

"I'll send Sloppy," said Mrs. Higden. 

" And this gentleman who has come with me will pay him for his 
trouble," said Mrs. Boffin. "And Mr. Sloppy, whenever you come 
to my house, be sure you never go away witliout having had a 
good dinner of meat, beer, vegetables, and pudding." 

This still further brightened the face of affairs ; for, the highly 
sympathetic Sloppy, first broadly staring and grinning, and then 
roaring with laughter. Toddles and Poddies followed suit, and 
Johnny trumped the trick. T and P considering these favourable 
circumstances for the resumption of that dramatic descent upon 
Johnny, again came across-country hand-in-hand upon a buccaneer- 
ing expedition ; and this having been fought out in the chimney 
corner behind Mrs. Higden's chair, with great valour on both sides, 
those desperate pirates returned hand-in-hand to their stools, across 
the dry bed of a mountain torrent. 



192 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" You must tell me what I can do for you, Betty my friend," 
said Mrs. Boffin confidentially, "if not to-day, next time." 

" Thank you all the same, ma'am, but I want nothing for my- 
self. I can work. I'm strong. I can walk twenty mile if I'm 
put to it." Old Betty was proud, and said it with a sparkle in 
her bright eyes. 

" Yes, but there are some little comforts that you wouldn't be 
the worse for," returned Mrs. Boflfin. " Bless ye, I wasn't born 
a lady any more than you." 

"It seems to me," said Betty, smiling, "that you were born a 
lady, and a true one, or there never was a lady born. But I 
couldn't take anything from you, my dear. I never did take any- 
thing from any one. It ain't that I'm not grateful, but I love to 
earn it better." 

"Well, well!" returned Mrs. Boffin. "I only spoke of little 
things, or I wouldn't have taken the liberty." 

Betty put her visitor's hand to her lips, in acknowledgment of 
the delicate answer. Wonderfully upright her figure was, and 
wonderfully self-reliant her look, as, standing facing her visitor, 
she explained herself further. 

" If I could have kept the dear child, without the dread that's 
always upon me of his coming to that fate I have spoken of, I 
could never have parted with him, even to you. For I love him, 
I love him, I love him ! I love my husband long dead and gone, 
in him ; I love my children dead and gone, in him ; I love my 
young and hopeful days dead and gone, in him. I couldn't sell 
that love, and look you in your bright kind face. It's a free gift. 
I am in want of nothing. When my strength fails me, if I can 
but die out quick and quiet, I shall be quite content. I have 
stood between my dead and that shame I have spoken of, and 
it has been kept off from every one of them. Sewed into my 
gown," with her hand upon her breast, "is just enough to lay me 
in the grave. Only see that it's rightly spent, so as I may rest 
free to the last from that cruelty and disgrace, and you'll have 
done much more than a little thing for me, and all that in this 
present world my heart is set upon." 

Mrs. Betty Higden's visitor pressed her hand. There was no 
more breaking up of the strong old face into weakness. My 
Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards, it really was as 
composed as our own faces, and almost as dignified. 

And now, Johnny was to be inveigled into occupying a tempo- 
rary position on Mrs. Boffin's lap. It was not until he had been 
piqued into competition with the two diminutive Minders, by 
seeing them successively raised to that post and retire from it 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 193 

without injury, that he could be by any means induced to leave 
Mrs. Betty Higden's skirts ; towards which he exhibited, even 
when in Mrs, Boffin's embrace, strong yearnings, spiritual and 
bodily ; the former expressed in a very gloomy visage, the latter 
in extended arms. However, a general description of the toy- 
wonders lurking in Mrs. Boffin's house, so far conciliated this 
worldly-minded orphan as to induce him to stare at her frown- 
ingly, with a fist in his mouth, and even at length to chuckle 
when a richly-caparisoned horse on wheels, with a miraculous 
gift of cantering to cake-shops, was mentioned. This sound being 
taken up by the Minders, swelled into a rapturous trio which 
gave general satisfaction. 

So, the interview was considered very successful, and Mrs. 
Boffin was pleased, and all were satisfied. Not least of all, Sloppy, 
who undertook to conduct the visitors back by the best way to 
the Three Magpies, and whom the hammer-headed young man 
much despised. 

This piece of business thus put in train, the Secretary drove 
Mrs. Boffin back to the Bower, and found employment for him- 
self at the new house until evening. Whether, when evening 
came, he took a way to his lodgings that led through fields, with 
any design of finding Miss Bella Wilfer in those fields, is not so 
certain as that she regularly walked there at that hour. 

And, moreover, it is certain that there she was. 

No longer in mourning, Miss Bella was dressed in as pretty 
colours as she could muster. There is no denying that she was 
as pretty as they, and that she and the colours went very prettily 
together. She was reading as she walked, and of course it is to 
be inferred, from her showing no knowledge of Mr. Rokesmith's 
approach, that she did not know he was approaching. 

" Eh ? " said Miss Bella, raising her eyes from her book, when 
he stopped before her. " Oh ! it's you." 

" Only I. A fine evening ! " 

"Is it?" said Bella, looking coldly round. "I suppose it is, 
now you mention it. I have not been thinking of the evening." 

" So intent upon your book ? " 

" Ye-e-es," replied Bella, with a drawl of indifference. 

" A love story. Miss Wilfer ? " 

"Oh dear no, or I shouldn't be reading it. It's more about 
money than anything else." 

" And does it say that money is better than anything ? " 

"Upon my word," returned Bella, "I forget what it says, but 
you can find out for yourself, if you like, Mr. Rokesmith. I 
don't want it any more." 



194 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

The Secretaiy took the book — she had fluttered the leaves as 
if it were a fan — and walked beside her. 

'' I am charged with a message for you, Miss Wilfer." 

" Impossible, I think ! " said Bella, with another drawl, 

" From Mrs. Boffin. She desired me to assure you of the 
pleasure she has in finding that she will be ready to receive you 
in another week or two at furthest." 

Bella turned her head towards him, with her prettily-insolent 
eyebrows raised, and her eyelids drooping. As much as to say, 
" How did you come by the message, pray % " 

" I have been waiting for an opportunity of telling you that I am 
Mr. Bofiin's Secretary." 

"I am as wise as ever," said Miss Bella, loftily, "for I don't 
know what a Secretary is. Not that it signifies." 

" Not at all." 

A covert glance at her face, as he walked beside her, showed 
him that she had not expected his ready assent to that proposition. 

" Then are you going to be always there, Mr. Rokesmith % " 
she inquired, as if that would be a drawback. 

"Always? No. Very much there ? Yes." 

" Dear me ! " drawled Bella in a tone of mortification. 

" But my position there as Secretary, will be very different 
from yours as guest. You will know little or nothing about me. 
I shall transact the business ; you will transact the pleasure. I 
shall have my salary to earn ; you will have nothing to do but 
to enjoy and attract." 

" Attract, sir % " said Bella, again with her eyebrows raised, and 
her eyelids drooping. "I don't understand you." 

Without replying on this point, Mr. Rokesmith went on. 

"Excuse me; when I first saw you in your black dress " 

(" There ! " was Miss Bella's mental exclamation. ' " What did 
I say to them at home? Everybody noticed that ridiculous 
mourning ! ") 

"When I first saw you in your black dress, I was at a loss to 
account for that distinction between yourself and your family. I 
hope it was not impertinent to speculate upon it ? " 

"I hope not, I am sure," said Miss Bella, haughtily. "But 
you ought to know best how you speculated upon it." 

Mr. Rokesmith inclined his head in a deprecatory manner, and 
went on. 

" Since I have been entrusted with Mr. Boffin's affairs, I have 
necessarily come to understand the little mystery. I venture to 
remark that I feel persuaded that much of your loss may be re- 
paired. I speak, of course, merely of wealth. Miss Wilfer. The 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 195 

loss of a perfect stranger, whose worth, or worthlessness, I cannot 
estimate — nor you either — is beside the question. But this ex- 
cellent gentleman and lady are so full of simplicity, so full of>| 
generosity, so inclined towards you, and so desirous to — how shall ' 
I express it ? — to made amends for their good fortune, that you 
have only to respond." 

As he watched her with another covert look, he saw a certain ambi- 
tious triumph in her face which no assumed coldness could conceal. 

" As we have been brought under one roof by an accidental 
combination of circumstances, which oddly extends itself to the 
new relations before us, I have taken the liberty of saying these 
few words. You don't consider them intrusive, I hope ? " said the 
Secretary with deference. 

"Eeally, Mr. Rokesmith, I can't say what I consider them," re- 
turned the young lady. " They are perfectly new to me, and may 
be founded altogether on your own imagination." 

"You will see." 

These same fields were opposite the Wilfer premises. The dis- 
creet Mrs. Wilfer now looking out of window and beholding her 
daughter in conference with Iier lodger, instantly tied up her head 
and came out for a casual walk. 

" I have been telling Miss Wilfer," said John Rokesmith, as the 
majestic lady came stalking up, "that I have become, by a curious 
chance, Mr. Boffin's Secretary or man of business." 

"I have not," returned Mrs. Wilfer, waving her gloves in her 
chronic state of dignity, and vague ill-usage, " the honour of any 
intimate acquaintance with Mr. Boffin, and it is not for me to con- 
gratulate that gentleman on the acquisition he has made." 

"A poor one enough," said Rokesmith. 

"Pardon me," returned Mrs. Wilfer, "the merits of Mr. Boffin 
may be highly distinguished — may be more distinguished than 
the countenance of Mrs. Boffin would imply — but it were the 
insanity of humility to deem him worthy of a better assistant." 

"You are very good. I have also been telling Miss Wilfer that 
she is expected very shortly at the new residence in town." 

"Having tacitly consented," said Mrs. Wilfer, with a grand 
shrug of her shoulders, and another wave of her gloves, "to my 
child's acceptance of the proffered attentions of Mrs. Boffin, I 
interpose no objection." 

Here Miss Bella offered the remonstrance : " Don't talk nonsense, 
ma, please." 

" Peace ! " said Mrs. Wilfer. 

" No, ma, I am not going to be made so absurd. Interposing 
objections ! " 



196 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" I say," repeated Mrs. Wilfer, with a vast access of grandeur, 
"that I am not going to interpose objections. If Mrs. Boffin (to 
whose countenance no disciple of Lavater could possibly for a 
single moment subscribe)," with a shiver, "seeks to illuminate her 
new residence in town with the attractions of a child of mine, I 
am content that she should be favoured by the company of a child 
of mine." 

" You use the word, ma'am, I have myself used," said Rokesmith, 
with a glance at Bella, " when you speak of Miss Wilfer's attrac- 
tions there." 

"Pardon me," returned Mrs. Wilfer, with dreadful solemnity, 
"but I had not finished." 

" Pray excuse me." 

"I was about to say," pursued Mrs. Wilfer, who clearly had not 
had the faintest idea of saying anything more : " that when I use 
the term attractions, I do so with the quaUfication that I do not 
mean it in any way whatever." 

The excellent lady delivered this luminous elucidation of her 
views with an air of greatly obliging her hearers, and greatly 
distinguishing herself. Whereat Miss Bella laughed a scornful 
little laugh and said : 

" Quite enough about this, I am sure, on all sides. Have the 
goodness, Mr. Rokesmith, to give my love to Mrs. Boffin " 

" Pardon me ! " cried Mrs. Wilfer. " Compliments." 

" Love ! " repeated Bella, with a little stamp of her foot. 

" No ! " said Mrs. Wilfer, monotonously. " Compliments." 

("Say Miss Wilfer's love, and Mrs. Wilfer's compliments," the 
Secretary proposed, as a compromise.) 

" And I shall be very glad to come when she is ready for me. 
The sooner, the better." 

"One last word, Bella," said Mrs. Wilfer, "before descending to 
the family apartment. I trust that as a child of mine you will 
ever be sensible that it will be graceful in you, when associating 
with Mr. and Mrs. Boffin upon equal terms, to remember that the 
Secretary, Mr. Rokesmith, as your father's lodger, has a claim on 
your good word." 

The condescension with which Mrs. Wilfer delivered this procla- 
mation of patronage, was as wonderful as the swiftness with which 
the lodger had lost caste in the Secretary. He smiled as the mother 
retired down-stairs ; but his face fell, as the daughter followed. 

" So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so careless, 
so hard to touch, so hard to turn ! " he said, bitterly. 

And added as he went up-stairs. "And yet so pretty, so 
pretty ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 197 

And added presently, as he walked to and fro in his room. 
" And if she knew ! " 

She knew that he was shaking the house by his walking to and 
fro ; and she declared it another of the miseries of being poor, that 
you couldn't get rid of a haunting Secretary, stump — stump — 
stumping overhead in the dark, like a Ghost. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

A DISMAL SWAMP. 

Akd now, in the blooming summer days, behold Mr. and Mrs. 
Bofiin established in the eminently aristocratic family mansion, 
and behold all manner of crawling, creeping, fluttering, and buzz- 
ing creatures, attracted by the gold dust of the Golden Dustman ! 

Foremost among those leaving cards at the eminently aristocratic 
door before it is quite painted, are the Veneerings : out of breath, 
one might imagine, from the impetuosity of their rush to the 
eminently aristocratic steps. One copper-plate Mrs. Veneering, 
two copper-plate Mr. Veneerings, and a connubial copper-plate 
Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, requesting the honour of Mr. and Mrs. 
Boffin's company at dinner with the utmost Analytical solemnities. 
The enchanting Lady Tippins leaves a card. Twemlow leaves 
cards. A tall mustard-coloured phaeton tooling up in a solemn 
manner leaves four cards, to wit, a couple of Mr. Podsnaps, a 
Mrs. Podsnap, and a Miss Podsnap. All the world and his wife 
and daughter leave cards. Sometimes the world's wife has so 
many daughters, that her card reads rather like a Miscellaneous 
Lot at an Auction ; comprising Mrs. Tapkins, Miss Tapkins, 
Miss Frederica Tapkins, Miss Antonina Tapkins, Miss Malvina 
Tapkins, and Miss Euphemia Tapkins ; at the same time, the 
same lady leaves the card of Mrs. Henry George Alfred Swoshle, 
nee Tapkins ; also, a card, Mrs. Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, 
Music, Portland Place. 

Miss Bella Wilfer becomes an inmate, for an indefinite period, 
of the eminently aristocratic dwelling. Mrs. Boffin bears Miss 
Bella away to her Milliner's and Dressmaker's, and she gets beauti- 
fully dressed. The Veneerings find with swift remorse that they 
have omitted to invite Miss Bella Wilfer. One Mrs. Veneering 
and one Mr. and Mrs. Veneering requesting that additional honour, 
instantly do penance in white cardboard on the hall table. Mrs. 
Tapkins likewise discovers her omission, and with promptitude 
repairs it ; for herself, for Miss Tapkins, for Miss Frederica Tap- 



198 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

kins, for Miss Antonina Tapkins, for Miss Malvina Tapkins, and for 
Miss Euphemia Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs. Henry George 
Alfred Swoshle, 7iee Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs. Tapkins at 
Home, Wednesdays, Music, Portland Place. 

Tradesmen's books hunger, and tradesmen's mouths water, for 
the gold dust of the Golden Dustman. As Mrs. Boffin and Miss 
Wilfer drive out, or as Mr. Boffin walks out at his jog-trot pace, 
the fishmonger pulls off his hat with an air of reverence founded 
on conviction. His men cleanse their fingers on their woollen 
aprons before presuming to touch their foreheads to Mr. Boffin or 
Lady. The gaping salmon and the golden mullet lying on the 
slab seem to turn up their eyes sideways, as they would turn up 
their hands if they had any, in worshipping admiration. The 
butcher, though a portly and prosperous man, doesn't know what 
to do with himself, so anxious is he to express humility when 
discovered by the passing Boffins taking the air in a mutton 
grove. Presents are made to the Boffin servants, and bland 
strangers with business-cards meeting said servants in the street, 
offer hypothetical corruption. As, " Supposing I was to be 
favoured with an order from Mr. Boffin, my dear friend, it would 
be worth my while " — to do a certain thing that I hope might not 
prove wholly disagreeable to your feelings. 

But no one knows so well as the Secretary, who opens and 
reads the letters, what a set is made at the man marked by a 
stroke of notoriety. Oh the varieties of dust for ocular use, 
offered in exchange for the gold dust of the Golden Dustman ! 
Fifty-seven churches to be erected with half-crowns, forty-two 
parsonage houses to be repaired with shillings, seven-and-twenty 
organs to be built with halfpence, twelve hundred children to be 
brought up on postage stamps. Not that a half-crown, shilling, 
halfpenny, or postage stamp, would be particularly acceptable 
from Mr. Boffin, but that it is so obvious he is the man to make 
up the deficiency. And then the charities, my Christian brother ! 
And mostly in difficulties, yet mostly lavish, too, in the expensive 
articles of print and paper. Large fat private double letter, 
sealed with ducal coronet. " Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. My 
dear Sir, — Having consented to preside at the forthcoming Annual 
Dinner of the Family Party Fund, and feeling deeply impressed 
with the immense usefulness of that noble Institution and the 
great importance of its being supported by a List of Stewards 
that shall prove to the public the interest taken in it by popular 
and distinguished men, I have undertaken to ask you to become a 
Steward on that occasion. Soliciting your favourable reply before 
the 14th instant, I am, My Dear Sir, Your faithful servant, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 199 

Linseed. P.S. The Steward's fee is limited to three Guineas." 
Friendly this, on the part of the Duke of Linseed (and thoughtful 
in the postscript), only lithographed by the hundred and present- 
ing but a pale individuality of address to Nicodemus Boffin, 
Esquire, in quite another hand. It takes two noble Earls and a 
Viscount, combined, to inform Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in an 
equally flattering manner, that an estimable lady in the West 
of England has offered to present a purse containing twenty 
pounds, to the Society for G-ranting Annuities to Unassuming 
Members of the Middle Classes, if twenty individuals will pre- 
viously present purses of one hundred pounds each. And those 
benevolent noblemen very kindly point out that if Nicodemus 
Boffin, Esquire, should wish to present two or more purses, it 
will not be inconsistent with the design of the estimable lady in 
the West of England, provided each purse be coupled with the 
name of some member of his honoured and respected family. 

These are the corporate beggars. But there are, besides, the 
individual beggars ; and how does the heart of the Secretary 
fail him when he has to cope with them/ And they must be 
coped with to some extent, because they all enclose documents 
(they call their scraps documents; but they are, as to papers 
deserving the name, what minced veal is to a calf), the non-return 
of which would be their ruin. That is to say, they are utterly 
ruined now, but they would be more utterly ruined then. Among 
these correspondents are several daughters of general officers, 
long accustomed to every luxury of life (except spelling), who 
little thought, when their gallant fathers waged war in the 
Peninsula, that they would ever have to appeal to those whom 
Providence, in its inscrutable wisdom, has blessed with untold 
gold, and from among whom they select the name of Nicodemus 
Boffin, Esquire, for a maiden effort in this wise, understanding 
that he has such a heart as never was. The Secretary learns, 
too, that confidence between man and wife would seem to obtain 
but rarely when virtue is in distress, so numerous are the wives 
who take up their pens to ask Mr. Boffin for money without the 
knowledge of their devoted husbands, who would never permit it ; 
while, on the other hand, so numerous are the husbands who take 
up their pens to ask Mr. Boffin for money without the knowledge 
of their devoted wives, who would instantly go out of their senses 
if they had the least suspicion of the circumstance. There are 
the insi^ired beggars, too. These were sitting, only yesterday 
evening, musing over a fragment of candle which must soon go 
out and leave them in the dark for the rest of their nights, when 
surely some angel whispered the name of Nicodemus Boffin, 



200 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Esquire, to their souls, imparting rays of hope, nay confidence, 
to which they had long been strangers ! Akin to these are the 
suggestively-befriended beggars. They were partaking of a cold 
potato and water by the flickering and gloomy light of a lucifer 
match, in their lodgings (rent considerably in arrear, and heart- 
less landlady threatening expulsion " like a dog " into the streets), 
when a gifted friend happening to look in, said, "Write immedi- 
ately to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire," and would take no denial. 
There are the nobly independent beggars, too. These, in the 
days of their abundance, ever regarded gold as dross, and have 
not yet got over that only impediment in the way of their amass- 
ing wealth, but they want no dross from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire; 
No, Mr. Boffin ; the world may term it pride, paltry pride if you 
will, but they wouldn't take it if you offered it ; a loan, sir — for 
fourteen weeks to the day, interest calculated at the rate of five 
per cent, per annum, to be bestowed upon any charitable insti- 
tution you may name — is all they want of you, and if you have the 
meanness to refuse it, count on being despised by these great spirits. 
There are the beggars of punctual business-habits too. These will 
make an end of themselves at a quarter to one p.m. on Tuesday, if no 
Post-office order is in the interim received from Nicodemus Boffin, 
Esquire ; arriving after a quarter to one p.m. on Tuesday, it need not 
be sent, as they will then (having made an exact memorandum of 
the heartless circumstances) be "cold in death." There are the 
beggars on horse-back too, in another sense from the sense of the 
proverb. These are mounted and ready to start on the highway to 
affluence. The goal is before them, the road is in the best condi- 
tion, their spurs are on, the steed is willing, but, at the last mo- 
ment, for want of some special thing — a clock, a violin, an astronom- 
ical telescope, an electrifying machine — they must dismoimt for 
ever, unless they receive its equivalent in money from Nicodemus 
Boffin, Esquire. Less given to detail are the beggars who make 
sporting ventures. These, usually to be addressed in reply under 
initials at a country post-office, inquire in feminine hands. Dare one 
who cannot disclose herself to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, but whose 
name might startle him were it revealed, solicit the immediate ad- 
vance of two hundred pounds from unexpected riches exercising 
their noblest privilege in the trust of a common humanity ? 

In such a Dismal Swamp does the new house stand, and through 
it does the Secretary daily struggle breast-high. Not to mention all 
the people alive who have made inventions that won't act, and all 
the jobbers who job in all the jobberies jobbed ; though these may 
be regarded as the Alligators of the Dismal Swamp, and are always 
lying by to drag the Golden Dustman under. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 201 

But the old house. There are no designs against the Golden 
Dustman there ? There are no fish of the shark tribe in the Bower 
waters ? Perhaps not. Still, Wegg is established there, and would 
seem, judged by his secret proceedings, to cherish a notion of making 
a discovery. For, when a man with a wooden leg lies prone on his 
stomach to peep under bedsteads ; and hops up ladders, like some 
extinct bird, to survey the tops of presses and cupboards ; and pro- 
vides himself an iron rod which he is always poking and prodding 
into dust-mounds; the probability is that he expects to find some- 
thing. 



END OF BOOK I. 



BOOK THE SECOND.— ^Ji^D^ OF A 
FEATHER. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER. 

The school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned from 
a book — the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the great Pre- 
paratory Establishment in which very much that is never unlearned 
is learned without and before book — was a miserable loft in an un- 
savoury yard. Its atmosphere was oppressive and disagreeable; 
it was crowded, noisy, and confusing ; half the pupils dropped asleep, 
or fell into a state of waking stupefaction ; the other half kept 
them in either condition by maintaining a monotonous droning noise, 
as if they were performing, out of time and tune, on a ruder sort of 
bagpipe. The teachers, animated solely by good intentions, had no 
idea of execution, and a lamentable jumble was the upshot of their 
kind endeavours. 

It was a school for all ages, and for both sexes. The latter were 
kept apart, and the former were partitioned off into square assort- 
ments. But, all the place was pervaded by a grimly ludicrous pre- 
tence that every pupil was childish and innocent. This pretence, 
much favoured by the lady -visitors, led to the ghastliest absurdities. 
Young women old in the vices of the commonest and worst life, were 
expected to profess themselves enthralled by the good child's book, 
the Adventures of Little Margery, who resided in the village cot- 
tage by the mill ; severely reproved and morally squashed the miller, 
when she was five and he was fifty ; divided her porridge with sing- 
ing birds ; denied herself a new nankeen bonnet, on the ground that 
the turnips did not wear nankeen bonnets, neither did the sheep 
who ate them ; who plaited straw and delivered the dreariest orations 
to all comers, at all sorts of unseasonable times. So, unwieldy 
young dredgers and hulking mudlarks were referred to the experi- 
ences of Thomas Twopence, who, having resolved not to rob (under 
circumstances of uncommon atrocity) his particular friend and bene- 

, 202 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 203 

factor, of eighteenpence, presently came into supernatural possession 
of three and sixpence, and lived a shining light ever afterwards. 
(Note, that the benefactor came to no good.) Several swaggering 
sinners had written their own biographies in the same strain ; it 
always appearing from the lessons of those very boastful persons, 
that you were to do good, not because it teas good, but because 
you were to make a good thing of it. Contrariwise, the adult 
pupils were taught to read (they could learn) out of the New Tes- 
tame'ht ; and by dint of stumbling over the syllables and keeping 
their bewildered eyes on the particular syllables coming round to 
their turn, were as absolutely ignorant of the sublime history, as if 
they had never seen or heard of it. An exceedingly and confound- 
ingly perplexing jumble of a school, in fact, where black spirits and 
grey, red spirits and white, jumbled jumbled jumbled jumbled, 
jumbled every night. And particularly every Sunday night. For 
then, an inclined plane of unfortunate infants would be handed 
over to the prosiest and worst of all the teachers with good inten- 
tions, whom nobody older would endure. Who, taking his stand 
on the floor before them *as chief executioner, would be attended 
by a conventional volunteer boy as executioner's assistant. When 
and where it first became the conventional system that a weary or 
inattentive infant in a class must have its face smoothed down- 
ward with a hot hand, or when and where the conventional vol- 
unteer boy first beheld such system in operation, and became 
inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it, matters not. It 
was the function of the chief executioner to hold forth, and it was 
the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants, yawning 
infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth their 
wretched faces ; sometimes with one hand, as if he were anointing 
them for a whisker ; sometimes with both hands, applied after the 
fashion of blinkers. And so the jumble would be in action in this 
department for a mortal hour ; the exponent drawling on to My 
Dearerr Childerrenerr, let us say, for example, about the beautiful 
coming to the Sepulchre ; and repeating the word Sepulchre (com- 
monly used among infants) five hundred times, and never once hint- 
ing what it meant ; the conventional boy smoothing away right and 
left, as an infallible conmientary ; the whole hot-bed of flushed and 
exhausted infants exchanging measles, rashes, whooping-cough, 
fever, and stomach disorders, as if they were assembled in High 
Market for the purpose. 

Even in this temple of good intentions, an exceptionally sharp 
boy exceptionally determined to learn, could learn something, and, 
having learned it, could impart it much better than the teachers ; 
as being more knowing than they, and not at the disadvantage 



204 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

in which they stood towards the shrewder pupils. In this way 
it had coni^ about that Charley Hexam had risen in the jumble, 
taught in the jumble, and been received from the jumble into a 
better school. 

" So you want to go and see your sister, Hexam ? " 

"If you please, Mr. Headstone." 

*' I have half a mind to go with you. Where does your sister 
live?" 

" Why, she is not settled yet, Mr. Headstone. I'd rather you 
didn't see her till she's settled, if it was all the same to you." 

"Look here, Hexam." Mr. Bradley Headstone, highly certifi- 
cated stipendiary schoolmaster, drew his right forefinger through 
one of the buttonholes of the boy's coat, and looked at it atten- 
tively. " I hope your sister may be good company for you ? " 

" Why do you doubt it, Mr. Headstone ? " 

" I did not say I doubted it." 

" No, sir ; you didn't say so." 

Bradley Headstone looked at his finger again, took it out of the 
buttonhole and looked at it closer, bit the side of it and looked at 
it again. 

" You see, Hexam, you will be one of us. In good time you 
are sure to pass a creditable examination and become one of us. 
Then the question is " 

The boy waited so long for the question, while the schoolmaster 
looked at a new side of his finger, and bit it, and looked at it 
again, that at length the boy repeated : 

" The question is, sir — ? " 

" Whether you had not better leave well alone." 

"Is it well to leave my sister alone, Mr. Headstone ? " 

" I do not say so, because I do not know. I put it to you. 
I ask you to think of it. I want you to consider. You know how 
well you are doing here." 

" After all, she got me here," said the boy, with a struggle. 

" Perceiving the necessity of it," acquiesced the schoolmaster, 
"and making up her mind fully to the separation. Yes." 

The boy, with a return of that former reluctance or struggle 
or whatever it was, seemed to debate with himself. At length he 
said, raising his eyes to the master's face : 

" I wish you'd come with me and see her, Mr. Headstone, though 
she is not settled. I wish you'd come with me, and take her in 
the rough, and judge her for yourself." 

"You are sure you would not like," asked the schoolmaster, " to 
prepare her ? " 

"My sister Lizzie," said the boy, proudly, "wants no preparing, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 205 

Mr. Headstone. "What she is, she is, and shows herself to be. 
There's no pretending about my sister." 

His confidence in her sat more easily upon him than the indeci- 
sion with which he had twice contended. It was his better nature 
to be true to her, if it were his worse nature to be wholly selfish. 
And as yet the better nature had the stronger hold. 

"Well, I can spare the evening," said the schoolmaster. "I 
am ready to walk with you." 

" Thank you, Mr. Headstone. And I am ready to go." 

Bradley Headstone, in his decent black coat and waistcoat, and 
decent white shirt, and decent formal black tie, and decent panta- 
loons of pepper and salt, with his decent silver watch in his pocket 
and his decent hair-guard round his neck, looked a thoroughly 
decent young man of six-and-twenty. He was never seen in any 
other dress, and yet there was a certain stiffness in his manner of 
wearing this, as if there were a want of adaptation between him 
and it, recalling some mechanics in their holiday clothes. He had 
acquired mechanically a great store of teacher's knowledge. He 
could do mental arithmetic mechanically, sing at sight mechanically, 
blow various wind instruments mechanically, even play the great 
church organ mechanically. From his early childhood up, his mind 
had been a place of mechanical stowage. The arrangement of his 
wholesale warehouse, so that it might be always ready to meet the 
demands of retail dealers — history here, geography there, astron- 
omy to the right, political economy to the left — natural history, 
the physical sciences, figures, music, the lower mathematics, and 
what not, all in their several places — this care had imparted to 
his countenance a look of care ; while the habit of questioning 
and being questioned had given him a suspicious manner, or a 
manner that would be better described as one of lying in wait. 
There was a kind of settled trouble in the face. It was the face 
belonging to a naturally slow or inattentive intellect that had 
toiled hard to get what it had won, and that had to hold it now 
that it was gotten. He always seemed to be uneasy lest anything 
should be missing from his mental warehouse, and taking stock to 
assure himself. 

Suppression of so much to make room for so much, had given 
him a constrained manner, over and above. Yet there was enough 
of what was animal, and of what was fiery (though smouldering), 
still visible in him, to suggest that if young Bradley Headstone, 
when a pauper lad, chanced to be told off" for the sea, he would not 
have been the last man in a ship's crew. Regarding that origin 
of his, he was proud, moody, and sullen, desiring it to be forgotten. 
And few people knew of it. 



206 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

In some visits to the Jumble his attention had been attracted 
to this boy Hexam. An undeniable boy for a pupil-teacher ; an 
undeniable boy to do credit to the master who should bring him on. 
Combined with this consideration there may have been some thought 
of the pauper lad now never to be mentioned. Be that how it 
might, he had with pains gradually worked the boy into his own 
school, and procured him some offices to discharge there, which were 
repaid with food and lodging. Such were the circumstances that 
had brought together Bradley Headstone and young Charley Hexam 
that autumn evening. Autumn, because full half a year had come 
and gone since the bird of prey lay dead upon the river-shore. 

The schools — for they were twofold, as the sexes — were down 
in that district of the flat country tending to the Thames, where 
Kent and Surrey meet, and where the railways still bestride the 
market-gardens that will soon die under them. The schools were 
newly built, and there were so many like them all over the country, 
that one might have thought the whole were but one restless edi- 
fice with the locomotive gift of Aladdin's palace. They were in a 
neighbourhood which looked like a toy neighbourhood taken in 
blocks out of a box by a child of particularly incoherent mind, and 
set up anyhow ; here, one side of a new street ; there, a large soli- 
tary public-house facing nowhere ; here, another unfinished street 
already in niins ; there, a church ; here, an immense new ware- 
house ; there, a dilapidated old country villa ; then, a medley of 
black ditch, sparkling cucumber-frame, rank field, richly cultivated 
kitchen-garden, brick viaduct, arch-spanned canal, and disorder of 
frowsiness and fog. As if the child had given the table a kick 
and gone to sleep. 

But even among school-buildings, school-teachers, and school- 
pupils, all according to pattern and all engendered in the light of 
the latest Gospel according to Monotony, the older pattern into 
which so many fortunes have been shaped for good and evil, comes 
out. It came out in Miss Peecher the schoolmistress, watering 
her flowers, as Mr. Bradley Headstone walked forth. It came out 
in Miss Peecher the schoolmistress, watering the flowers in the 
little dusty bit of garden attached to her small official residence, 
with little windows like the eyes in needles, and little doors like 
the covers of school books. 

Small, shining, neat, methodical, and buxom was Miss Peecher ; 
cherry-cheeked and tuneful of voice. A little pincushion, a little 
housewife, a little book, a little workbox, a little set of tables and 
weights and measures, and a little woman, all in one. She could 
write a little essay on any subject, exactly a slate long, beginning 
at the left-hand top of one side and ending at the right-hand 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 207 

bottom of the other, and the essay should be strictly according to 
rule. If Mr. Bradley Headstone had addressed a written proposal 
of marriage to her, she would probably have replied in a complete 
little essay on the theme exactly a slate long, but would certainly 
have replied yes. For she loved him. The decent hair-guard 
that went round his neck and took care of his decent silver watch 
was an object of envy to her. So would Miss Peecher have gone 
round his neck and taken care of him. Of him, insensible. Be- 
cause he did not love Miss Peecher. 

Miss Peecher's favourite pupil, who assisted her in her little 
household, was in attendance with a can of water to replenish her 
little watering-pot, and sufficiently divined the state of Miss 
Peecher's affections to feel it necessary that she herself should love 
young Charley Hexam. So, there was a double palpitation among 
the double stocks and double wallflowers, when the master and 
the boy looked over the little gate. 

"A fine evening, Miss Peecher," said the Master. 

"A very fine evening, Mr. Headstone," said Miss Peecher. 
" Are you taking a walk 1 " 

" Hexam and I are going to take a long walk," 

■" Charming weather," remarked Miss Peecher, ^\for a long walk." 

" Ours is rather on business than mere pleasure," said the Master. 

Miss Peecher inverting her watering-pot, and very carefully 
shaking out the few last drops over a flower, as if there were some 
special virtue in them which would make it a Jack's beanstalk 
befofe morning, called for replenishment to her pupil, who had 
been speaking to the boy. 

" Good-night, Miss Peecher," said the Master. 

" Good-night, Mr. Headstone," said the Mistress. 

The pupil had been, in her state of pupilage, so imbued with 
the class-custom of stretching out an arm, as if to hail a cab or 
omnibus, whenever she found she had an observation on hand to 
offer to Miss Peecher, that she often did it in their domestic rela- 
tions ; and she did it now. 

" Well, Mary Anne ? " said Miss Peecher. 

" If you please, ma'am, Hexam said they were going to see his 
sister." 

"But that can't be, I think," returned Miss Peecher: "because 
Mr. Headstone can have no business with Aer." 

Mary Anne again hailed. 

"Well, Mary Anne?" 

" If you please, ma'am, perhaps it's Hexam's business ? " 

" That may be," said Miss Peecher. " I didn't think of that. 
Not that it matters at all." 



208 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Mary Anne again hailed, 

"WeU, Mary Anne?" 

"They say she's very handsome." 

" Oh, Mary Anne, Mary Anne ! " returned Miss Peecher, slightly 
colouring and shaking her head, a little out of humour; "how 
often have I told you not to use that vague expression, not to speak 
in that general way ? When you say tkey say, what do you mean % 
Part of speech They?" 

Mary Anne hooked her right arm behind her in her left hand, 
as being under examination, and replied : 

"Personal pronoun." • 

"Person, They?" 

" Third person." 

"Number, They?" 

" Plural number." 

" Then how many do you mean, Mary Anne? Two ? Or more ?" 

" I beg your pardon, ma'am," said Mary Anne, disconcerted now 
she came to think of it ; " but I don't know that I mean more 
than her brother himself." As she said it, she unhooked her arm. 

" I felt convinced of it," returned Miss Peecher, smiling again. 
" Now pray, Mary Anne, be careful another time. He says' is 
very different from they say, remember. Difference between he 
says and they say ? Give it me." 

Mary Anne immediately hooked her right arm behind her in her 
left hand — an attitude absolutely necessary to the situation — and 
replied : " One is indicative mood, present tense, third person 
singular, verb active to say. Other is indicative mood, present 
tense, third person plural, verb active to say." 

" Why verb active, Mary Anne ? " 

" Because it takes a pronoun after it in the objective case, 
Miss Peecher." 

"Very good indeed," remarked Miss Peecher, with encourage- 
ment. " In fact, could not be better. Don't forget to apply it, 
another time, Mary Anne." This said. Miss Peecher finished the 
watering of her flowers, and went into her little official residence, 
and took a refresher of the principal rivers and mountains of the 
world, their breadths, depths, and heights, before settling the meas- 
urements of the body of a dress for her own personal occupation. 

Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam duly got to the Surrey 
side of Westminster Bridge, and crossed the bridge, and made along 
the Middlesex shore towards Millbank. In this region are a cer- 
tain little street, called Church Street, and a certain little blind 
square, called Smith Square, in the centre of whicli last retreat is 
a very hideous church with four towers at the four corners, gener- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 209 

ally resembling some petrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on 
its back with its legs in the air. They found a tree near by in a 
corner, and a blacksmith's forge, and a timber yard, and a dealer's in 
old iron. What a rusty portion of a boiler and a great iron wheel 
or so meant by lying half-buried in the dealer's fore-court, nobody 
seemed to know or want to know. Like the miller of questionable 
jollity in the song. They cared for Nobody, no not they, and Nobody 
cared for them. 

After making the round of this place, and noting that there was 
a deadly kind of repose on it, more as though it had taken lauda- 
num than fallen into a natural rest, they stopped at the point 
where the street and the square joined, and where there were some 
little quiet houses in a row. To these Charley Hexam finally led 
the way, and at one of these stopped. 

" This must be where my sister lives, sir. This is where she 
came for a temporary lodging, soon after father's death." 

" How often have you seen her since ? " 

"Why, only twice, sir," returned the boy, with his former reluc- 
tance ; " but that's as much her doing as mine." 

" How does she support herself? " 

" She was always a fair needle- woman, and she keeps the stock- 
room of a seaman's outfitter." 

"Does she ever work at her own lodging here?" 

" Sometimes ; but her regular hours and regular occupation are 
at their place of business, I believe, sir. This is the number." 

The boy knocked at a door, and the door promptly opened with 
a spring and a click. A parlour door within a small entry stood 
open, and disclosed a child — a dwarf — a girl — a something — 
sitting on a little low old-fashioned arm-chair, which had a kind of 
little working bench before it. 

"I can't get up," said the child, "because my back's bad, and 
my legs are queer. But I'm the person of the house." 

" Who else is at home 1 " asked Charley Hexam, staring. 

"Nobody's at home at present," returned the child, with a glib 
assertion of her dignity, "except the person of the house. What 
did you want, young man 1 " 

" I wanted to see my sister." 

"Many young men have sisters," returned the child. "Give 
me your name, young man." 

The queer little figure, and the queer but not ugly little face, 
with its bright grey eyes, were so sharp, that the sharpness of the 
manner seemed unavoidable. As if, being turned out of that mould, 
it must be sharp. 

" Hexam is my name." 



210 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Ah, indeed?" said the person of the house. "I thought it 
might he. Your sister will be in in about a quarter of an hour. 
I am very fond of your sister. She's my particular friend. Take 
a seat. And this gentleman's name 1 " 

"Mr. Headstone, my schoolmaster." 

"Take a seat. And would you please to shut the street door- 
first ? I can't very well do it myself, because my back's so bad, 
and my legs are so queer." 

They complied in silence, and the little figure went on mth its 
worTi of gumming or gluing together with a camel's-hair brush 
certain pieces of cardboard and thin wood, previously cut into 
various shapes. The scissors and knives upon the bench showed 
that the child herself had cut them ; and the bright scraps of vel- 
vet and silk and ribbon also strewn upon the bench showed that 
when duly stufted (and stufling too was there), she was to cover 
them smartly. The dexterity of her nimble fingers was remark- 
able, and, as she brought two thin edges accurately together by 
giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitors out of the 
corners of her grey eyes with a look that out-sharpened all her other 
sharpness. 

" You can't tell me the name of my trade, I'll be bound," she 
said, after taking several of these observations. 

"You make pincushions," said Charley. 

" What else do I make ? " 

" Pen-wipers," said Bradley Headstone. 

" Ha ! ha ! What else do I make ? You're a schoolmaster, but 
you can't tell me." 

"You do something," he returned, pointing to a corner of the 
little bench, " with straw ; but I don't know what." 

" Well done you ! " cried the person of the house. " I only make 
pincushions and pen-wipers to use up my waste. But my straw 
really does belong to my business. Try again. AVhat do I make 
with my straw ? " 

"Dinner-mats." 

"A schoolmaster, and says dinner-mats ! I'll give you a clue to 
my trade, in a game of forfeits. I love my love with a B because 
she's Beautiful ; I hate my love with a B because she is Brazen ; 
I took her to the sign of the Blue Boar, and I treated her with 
Bonnets ; her name's Bouncer, and she lives in Bedlam. — Now, 
what do I make with my straw ? " 

" Ladies' bonnets ? " 

"Fine ladies'," said the person of the house, nodding assent. 
" Dolls'. I'm a Doll's Dressmaker." 

" I hope it's a good business 1 " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 211 

The person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook her 
head. " No. Poorly paid. And I'm often so pressed for time ! 
I had a doll married, last week, and was obliged to work all night. 
And it's not good for me, on account of my back being so bad and 
my legs so queer." 

They looked at the little creature with a wonder that did not 
diminish, and the schoolmaster said : " I am sorry your fine ladies 
are so inconsiderate." 

"It's the way with them," said the person of the house, shrug- 
ging her shoulders again. " And they take no care of their clothes, 
and they never keep to the same fashions a month. I work for a 
doll with three daughters. Bless you, she's enough to ruin her 
husband ! " 

The person of the house gave a weird little laugh here, and gave 
them another look out of the corners of her eyes. She had an elfin 
chin that was capable of great expression ; and whenever she gave 
this look, she hitched this chin up. As if her eyes and her chin 
worked together on the same wires. 

" Are you always as busy as you are now 1 " 

" Busier. I'm slack just now. I finished a large mourning order 
the day before yesterday. Doll I work for lost a canary-bird." 
The person of the house gave another little laugh, and then nodded 
her head several times, as who should moralise, "Oh this world, 
this world ! " 

" Are you alone all day 1 " asked Bradley Headstone. " Don't 
any of the neighbouring children ? " 

" Ah, lud ! " cried the person of the house, with a little scream, 
as if the word had pricked her. " Don't talk of children. I can't 
bear children. / know their tricks and their manners." She said 
this with an angry little shake of her right fist close before her 
eyes. 

Perhaps it scarcely required the teacher-habit to perceive that 
the doll's dressmaker was inclined to be bitter on the difference 
between herself and other children. But both master and pupil 
understood it so. 

" Always running about and screeching, always playing and fight- 
ing, always skip-skip-skipping on the pavement and chalking it 
for their games ! Oh ! / know their tricks and their manners ! " 
Shaking the little fist as before. " And that's not all. Ever so 
often calling names in through a person's keyhole, and imitating a 
person's back and legs. Oh ! / know their tricks and their man- 
ners. And I'll tell you what I'd do to punish 'em. There's doors 
under the church in the Square — black doors, leading into black 
vaults. Well ! I'd open one of those doors, and I'd cram 'em all 



212 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

in, and then I'd lock the door and through the keyhole I'd blow in 
pepper." 

" What would be the good of blowing in pepper 1 " asked Charley 
Hexam. 

"To set 'em sneezing," said the person of the house, "and 
make their eyes water. And when they were all sneezing and 
inflamed, I'd mock 'em through the keyhole. Just as they, with 
their tricks and their manners, mock a person through a person's 
keyhole ! " 

An uncommonly emphatic shake of her little fist close before her 
eyes seemed to ease the mind of the person of the house ; for she 
added with recovered composure, " No, no, no. No children for me. 
Give me grown-ups." 

It was difficult to guess the age of this strange creature, for her 
poor figure furnished no clue to it, and her face was at once so 
young and so old. Twelve, or at the most thirteen, might be n?ar 
the mark. 

" I always did like grown-ups," she went on, " and always kept 
company with them. So sensible. Sit so quiet. Don't go pranc- 
ing and capering about ! And I mean always to keep among none 
but grown-ups till I marry. I suppose I must make up my mind 
to marry, one of these days." 

She listened to a step outside that caught her ear, and there was 
a soft knock at the door. Pulling at a handle within her reach, 
she said with a pleased laugh : " Now here, for instance, is a grown- 
up that's my particular friend ! " and Lizzie Hexam in a black 
dress entered the room. 

" Charley ! You ! " 

Taking him to her arms in the old way — of which he seemed a 
little ashamed — she saw no one else. 

" There, there, there, Liz, all right, my dear. See ! Here's 
Mr. Headstone come with me." 

Her eyes met those of the schoolmaster, who had evidently 
expected to see a very different sort of person, and a murmured 
word or two of salutation passed between them. She was a little 
flurried by the unexpected visit, and the schoolmaster was not at 
his ease. But he never was, quite. 

"I told Mr. Headstone you were not settled, Liz, but he was 
so kind as to take an interest in coming, and so I brought him. 
How well you look ! " 

Bradley seemed to think so. 

" Ah ! Don't she, don't she 1 " cried the person of the house, 
resuming her occupation, though the twilight was falling fast. 
" I believe you she does ! But go on with your chat, one and all : 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 213 

* You one two three, 
My com-pa-nie, 
And don't mind ine ; ' " 

— pointing this impromptu rhyme with three points of her thin 
forefinger. 

"I didn't expect a visit from you, Charley," said his sister. 
" I supposed that if you wanted to see me you would have sent to 
me, appointing me to come somewhere near the school, as I did 
last time. I saw my brother near the. school, sir," to Bradley 
Headstone, "because it's easier for me to go there, than for him to 
come here. I w^ork about midway between the two places." 

"You don't see much of one another," said Bradley, not improv- 
ing in respect of ease. 

" No." With a rather sad shake of her head. " Charley always 
does well, Mr. Headstone ? " 

" He could not do better. I regard his course as quite plain 
before him." 

" I hoped so. I am so thankful. So well done of you, Charley 
dear ! It is better for me not to come (except when he wants me) 
between him and his prospects. You think so, Mr. Headstone ? " 

Conscious that his pupil-teacher w^as looking for his answer, and 
that he himself had suggested the boy's keeping aloof from this 
sister, now seen for the first time face to face, Bradley Headstone 
stammered : 

" Your brother is very much occupied, you know. He has to 
work hard. One cannot but say that the less his attention is 
diverted from his work, the better for his future. When he shall 

have established himself, why then it will be another thing 

then." 

Lizzie shook her head again, and returned, with a quiet smile : 
" I always advised him as you advise him. Did I not, Charley ? " 

"Well, never mind that now," said the boy. "How are you 
getting on ? " 

" Very well, Charley. I want for nothing." 

" You have your own room here ? " 

" Oh yes. Up-stairs. And it's quiet, and pleasant, and airy." 

"And she always has the use of this room for visitors," said the 
person of the house, screwing up one of her little bony fists, like an 
opera-glass, and looking through it, with her eyes and her chin in 
that quaint accordance. " Always this room for visitors; haven't 
you, Lizzie dear ? " 

It happened that Bradley Headstone noticed a very slight 
action of Lizzie Hexam's hand, as though it checked the doll's 
dressmaker. And it happened that the latter noticed him at the 



214 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

same instant ; for she made a double eye-glass of her two hands, 
looked at him through it, and cried, with a waggish shake of her 
head : " Aha ! Caught you spying, did 1 1 " 

It might have fallen out so, any way ; but Bradley Headstone 
also noticed that immediately after this, Lizzie, who had not taken 
off her bonnet, rather hurriedly proposed that as the room was get- 
ting dark they should go out into the air. They went out ; the 
visitors saying good-night to the doll's dressmaker, whom they 
left, leaning back in her» chair with her arms crossed, singing to 
herself in a sweet thoughtful little voice. 

"I'll saunter on by the river," said Bradley. "You will be 
glad to talk together." 

As his uneasy figure went on before them among the evening 
shadows, the boy said to his sister petulantly : 

" When are you going to settle yourself in some Christian sort 
of place, Liz ? I thought you were going to do it before now." 

"I am very well where I am, Charley." 

" Very well where you are ! I am ashamed to have brought 
Mr. Headstone with me. How came you to get into such company 
as that little witch's 1 " 

"By chance at first, as it seemed, Charley. But I think it 

must have been by something more than chance, for that child 

You remember the bills upon the walls at home 1 " 

" Confound the bills upon the walls at home ! I want to for- 
get the bills upon the walls at home, and it would be better for 
you to do the same," grumbled the boy. " Well, what of them?" 

" This child is the grandchild of the old man." 

" What old man ?" 

"The terrible drunken old man, in the list slippers and the 
nightcap." 

The boy asked, rubbing his nose in a manner that half expressed 
vexation at hearing so much, and half curiosity to hear more : 
" How came you to make that out 1 What a girl you are ! " 

" The child's father is employed by the house that employs me ; 
that's how I came to know it, Charley. The father is like his 
own father, a weak wretched trembling creature, falling to pieces, 
never ^sober. But a good workman too, at the work he does. 
The mother is dead. This poor ailing little creature has come 
to be what she is, surrounded by drunken people from her cradle 
— if she ever had one, Charley." 

"I don't see wliat you have to do with her, for all that," said 
the boy. 

"Don't you, Charley?" 

The boy looked doggedly at the river. They were at ]\Iillbank, 



OUR MUTUAL FEIEND. 215 

and the river rolled on their left. His sister gently touched him 
on the shoulder, and pointed to it. 

"Any compensation — restitution — never mind the word — 
you know my meaning. Father's grave." 

But he did not respond with any tenderness. After a moody 
silence he broke out in an ill-used tone : 

"It'll be a very hard thing, Liz, if, when I am trying my best 
to get up in the world, you pull me back." 

"I, Charley?" 

"Yes, you, Liz. Why can't you let bygones be bygones? 
Why can't you, as Mr. Headstone said to me this very evening 
about another matter, leave well alone ? What we have got to do 
is, to turn our faces full in our new direction, and keep straight on." 

"And never look back? Not even to try to make some 
amends ? " 

"You are such a dreamer," said the boy. Math his former 
petulance. "It was all very well when we sat before the fire — 
when we looked into the hollow down by the flare — but we are 
looking into the real world, now." 

"Ah, we were looking into the real world then, Charley ! " 

" I understand what you mean by that, but you are not justified 
in it. I don't want, as I raise myself, to shake you off", Liz. I 
want to carry you up with me. That's what I want to do, and 
mean to do. I know what I owe you. I said to Mr. Headstone 
this very evening, 'After all, my sister got me here.' Well, then. 
Don't pull me back, and hold me down. That's all I ask, and 
surely that's not unconscionable." 

She had kept a steadfast look upon him, and she answered with 
composure : 

"I am not here selfishly, Charley. To please myself, I could 
not be too far from that river." 

" Nor could you be too far from it to please me. Let us get 
quit of it equally. Why should you linger about it any more than 
I ? I give it a wide berth." 

"I can't get away from it, I think," said Lizzie, passing her hand 
across her forehead. " It's no purpose of mine that I live by it 
still." 

" There you go, Liz ! Dreaming again ! You lodge yourself 
of your own accord in a house with a drunken — tailor, I suppose 
— or something of the sort, and a little crooked antic of a child, 
or old person, or whatever it is, and then you talk as if you were 
drawn or driven there. Now, do be more practical." 

She had been practical enough with him, in suffering and striv- 
ing for him ; but she only laid her hand upon his shoulder — not 



216 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

reproachfully — and tapped it twice or thrice. She had been 
used to do so, to soothe him when she carried him about, a child 
as heavy as herself. Tears started to his eyes. 

"Upon my word, Liz," drawing the back of his hand across 
them, " I mean to be a good brother to you, and to prove that I 
know what I owe you. All I say is, that I hope you'll control 
your fancies a little, on my account. I'll get a school, and then 
you must come and live with me, and you'll have to control your 
fancies then, so why not now ? Now, say I haven't vexed you." 

" You haven't, Charley, you haven't." 

"And say I haven't hurt you." 

"You haven't, Charley." But this answer was less ready. 

" Say you are sure I didn't mean to. Come ! there's Mr. 
Headstone stopping, and looking over the wall at the tide, to 
hint that it's time to go. Kiss me, and tell me that you know 
I didn't mean to hurt you." 

She told him so, and they embraced, and walked on and came 
up with the schoolmaster. 

"But we go your sister's way," he remarked, when the boy 
told him he was ready. And with his cumbrous and uneasy 
action he stiffly offered her his arm. Her hand was just within 
it, when she drew it back. He looked round with a start, as if 
he thought she had detected something that repelled her, in the 
momentary touch. 

"I will not go in just yet," said Lizzie. "And you have a 
distance before you, and will walk faster without me." 

Being by this time close to Vauxhall Bridge, they resolved, in 
consequence, to take that way over the Thames, and they left her ; 
Bradley Headstone giving her his hand at parting, and she thank- 
ing him for his care of her brother. 

The master and the pupil walked on, rapidly and silently. 
They had nearly crossed the bridge, w^hen a gentleman came 
coolly sauntering towards them, with a cigar in his mouth, his coat 
thrown back, and his hands behind him. Something in the 
careless manner of this person, and in a certain lazily arrogant air 
with which he approached, holding possession of twice as much 
pavement as another would have claimed, instantly caught the 
boy's attention. As the gentleman passed, the boy looked at 
him narrowly, and then stood still, looking after him. 

" Who is that you stare after ? " asked Bradley. 

" Why ! " said the boy, with a confused and pondering frown 
upon his face, "It is that Wrayburn one ! " 

Bradley Headstone scrutinised the boy as closely as the boy had 
scrutinised the gentleman. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 217 

" I beg your pardon, Mr. Headstone, but I couldn't help won- 
dering what in the world brought him here ! " 

Though he said it as if his wonder were past — at the same 
time resuming the walk — it was not lost upon the master that 
he looked over his shoulder after speaking, and that the same 
perplexed and pondering frown was heavy on his face. 

" You don't appear to like your friend, Hexam ? " 

"I don't like him," said the boy. 

"Why not?" 

"He took hold of me by the chin in a precious impertinent 
way, the first time I ever saw him," said the boy. 

"Again, why?" 

" For nothing. Or — it's much the same — because something 
I happened to say about my sister didn't happen to please him." 

" Then he knows your sister 1 " 

"He didn't at that time," said the boy, still moodily pondering. 

"Does now?" 

The boy had so lost himself that he looked at Mr. Bradley 
Headstone as they walked on side by side, without attempting to 
reply until the question had been repeated ; then he nodded, and 
answered, "Yes, sir." 

" Going to see her, I dare say." 

" It can't be ! " said the boy, quickly. " He doesn't know her 
well enough. I should like to catch him at it ! " 

When they had walked on for a time, more rapidly than before, 
the master said, clasping the pupil's arm between the elbow and 
the shoulder with his hand : 

"You were going to tell me something about that person. 
What did you say his name was ? " 

" Wrayburn. Mr. Eugene Wrayburn. He is what they call a 
barrister, with nothing to do. The first time he came to our old 
place was when my father was alive. He came on business ; not 
that it was his business — he never had any business — he was 
brought by a friend of his." 

"And the other times?" 

" There was only one other time that I know of. When my 
father was killed by accident, he chanced to be one of the finders. 
He was mooning about, I suppose, taking liberties with people's 
chins ; but there he was, somehow. He brought the news home 
to my sister early in the morning, and brought Miss Abbey 
Potterson, a neighbour, to help break it to her. He was mooning 
about the house when I was fetched home in the afternoon — they 
didn't know where to find me till my sister could be brought round 
sufficiently to tell them — and then he mooned away." 



218 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"And is that all?" 

" That's all, sir." 

Bradley Headstone gradually released the boy's arm, as if he 
were thoughtful, and they walked on side by side as before. 
After a long silence between them, Bradley resumed the talk. 

"I suppose — your sister "with a curious break both 

before and after the words, "has received hardly any teaching, 
Hexam?" 

"Hardly any, sir." 

"Sacrificed, no doubt, to her father's objections. I remember 
them in your case. Yet — your sister — scarcely looks or speaks 
like an ignorant person." 

" Lizzie has as much thought as the best, Mr. Headstone. Too 
much, perhaps, without teaching. I used to call the fire at home, 
her books, for she was always full of fancies — sometimes quite 
wise fancies, considering — when she sat looking at it." 

" I don't like that," said Bradley Headstone. 

His pupil was a little surprised by this striking in with so sud- 
den and decided and emotional an objection, but took it as a proof 
of the master's interest in himself. It emboldened him to say : 

"I have never brought myself to mention it openly to you, 
Mr. Headstone, and you're my witness that I couldn't even make 
up my mind to take it from you before we came out to-night ; but 
it's a painful thing to think that if I get on as well as you hope, I 
shall be — I won't say disgraced, because I don't mean disgraced 
— but — rather put to the blush if it was known — by a sister 
who has been very good to me." 

"Yes," said Bradley Headstone in a slurring way, for his mind 
scarcely seemed to touch that point, so smoothly did it glide to 
another, " and there is this possibility to consider. Some man 
who had worked his way might come to admire — your sister — 
and might even in time bring himself to think of marrying — your 
sister — and it would be a sad drawback and a heavy penalty upon 
him, if, overcoming in his mind other inequalities of condition and 
other considerations against it, this inequality and this consideration 
remained in full force." 

" That's much my own meaning, sir." 

"Ay, ay," said Bradley Headstone, "but you spoke of a mere 
brother. Now, the case I have supposed would be a much stronger 
case ; because an admirer, a husband, would form the connection 
voluntarily, besides being obliged to proclaim it : which a brother 
is not. After all, you know, it must be said of you that you 
couldn't help yourself: while it would be said of him, with equal 
reason, that he could." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 219 

" That's true, sir. Sometimes since Lizzie was left free by- 
father's death, I have thought that such a young woman might 
soon acquire more than enough to pass muster. And sometimes I 
have even thought that perhaps Miss Peecher " 

" For the purpose, I would advise Not Miss Peecher," Bradley 
Headstone struck in with a recurrence of his late decision of 
manner. 

" Would you be so kind as to think of it for me, Mr. Headstone 1 " 

"Yes, Hexam, yes. I'll think of it. I'll think maturely of it. 
I'll think well of it." 

Their walk was almost a silent one afterwards, until it ended at 
the scliool-house. There, one of neat Miss Peecher's little windows, 
like the eyes in needles, was illuminated, and in a corner near it sat 
Mary Anne watching, while Miss Peecher at the table stitched at 
the neat little body she was making up by brown paper pattern 
for her own wearing. N".B. Miss Peecher and Miss Peecher's 
pupils were not much encouraged in the unscholastic art of needle- 
work, by Government. 

Mary Anne, with her face to the window, held her arm up. 

"Well, Mary Anne?" 

" Mr. Headstone coming home, ma'am." 

In about a minute, Mary Anne again hailed. 

" Yes, Mary Anne ? " 

" Gone in and locked his door, ma'am." 

Miss Peecher repressed a sigh as she gathered her work to- 
gether for bed, and transfixed that part of her dress where her 
heart would have been if she had had the dress on, with a sharp, 
sharp needle. 



CHAPTER 11. 

STILL EDUCATIONAL. 

The person of the house, doll's dressmaker and manufacturer of 
ornamental pincushions and pen-wipers, sat in her quaint little low 
arm-chair, singing in the dark, until Lizzie came back. The per- 
son of the house had attained that dignity while yet of very tender 
years indeed, through being the only trustworthy person in the 
house. 

" Well, Lizzie-Mizzie-Wizzie," said she, breaking off in her song. 
" What's the news out of doors ? " 

" What's the news in doors ? " returned Lizzie, playfully smooth- 
ing the bright long fair hair which grew very luxuriant and beauti- 
ful on the head of the doll's dressmaker. 



220 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Let me see, said the blind man. Why the last news is, that 
I don't mean to marry your brother," 

"No?" 

"No-o," shaking her head and her chin. "Don't like the boy." 

" What do you say to his master ? " 

" I say that I think he's bespoke." 

Lizzie finished putting the hair carefully back over the misshapen 
shoulders, and then lighted a candle. It showed the little parlour 
to be dingy, but orderly and clean. She stood it on the mantel- 
shelf, remote from the dressmaker's eyes, and then put the room 
door open, and the house door open, and turned the little low chair 
and its occupant towards the outer air. It was a sultry night, and 
this was a fine-weather arrangement when the day's work was done. 
To complete it, she seated herself in a chair by the side of the little 
chair, and protectingly drew under her arm the spare hand that 
crept up to her. 

"This is what your loving Jenny Wren calls the best time in 
the day and night," said the person of the house. Her real name 
was Fanny Cleaver ; but she had long ago chosen to bestow upon 
herself the appellation of Miss Jenny Wren. 

"I have been thinking," Jenny went on, "as I sat at work 
to-day, what a thing it would be if I should be able to have your 
company till I am married, or at least courted. Because when I am 
courted, I shall make Him do some of the things that you do for me. 
He couldn't brush my hair like you do, or help me up and down 
stairs like you do, and he couldn't do anything like you do ; but he 
could take my work home, and he could call for orders in his clumsy 
way. And he shall too. Fll trot him about, I can tell him ! " 

Jenny Wren had her personal vanities — happily for her — and 
no intentions were stronger in her breast than the various trials 
and torments that were, in the fulness of time, to be inflicted upon 
"him." 

" Wherever he may happen to be just at present, or whoever he 
may happen to be," said Miss Wren, "/ know his tricks and his 
manners, and I give him warning to look out." 

"Don't you think you are rather hard upon him?" asked her 
friend, smiling, and smoothing her hair. 

"Not a bit," replied the sage Miss Wren, with an air of vast 
experience. "My dear, they don't care for you, those fellows, if 
you're 7iot hard upon 'em. But I was saying If I should be able 
to have your company. Ah ! What a large If ! Ain't it ? " 

" I have no intention of parting company, Jenny." 

" Don't say that, or you'll go directly." 

"Am I so little to be relied upon?" 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 221 

" You're more to be relied upon than silver and gold." As she 
said it, Miss Wren suddenly broke off, screwed up her eyes and 
her chin, and looked prodigiously knowing. "Aha ! 

" Who comes here ? 
" A Grenadier. 
" What does he want ? 
" A pot of beer. 

— And nothing else in the world, my dear ! " 

A man's figure paused on the pavement at the outer door. 
' Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, ain't it ? " said Miss Wren. 

*' So I am told," was the answer. 

" You may come in, if you're good." 

"I am not good," said Eugene, "but I'll come in." 

He gave his hand to Jenny Wren, and he gave his hand to Lizzie, 
and he stood leaning by the door at Lizzie's side. He had been 
strolling with his cigar, he said (it was smoked out and gone by 
this time), and he had strolled round to return in that direction 
that he might look in as he passed. Had she not seen her brother 
to-night ? 

"Yes," said Lizzie, whose manner was a little troubled. 

Gracious condescension on our brother's part ! Mr. Eugene 
Wrayburn thought he had passed my young gentleman on the 
bridge yonder. Who was his friend with him 1 

" The schoolmaster." 

" To be sure. Looked like it." 

Lizzie sat so still, that one could not have said wherein the fact 
of her manner being troubled was expressed ; and yet one could 
not have doubted it. Eugene was as easy as ever ; but perhaps as 
she sat with her eyes cast down, it might have been rather more 
perceptible that his attention was concentrated upon her for certain 
moments, than its concentration upon any subject for any short 
time ever was, elsewhere. 

" I have nothing to report, Lizzie," said Eugene. " But having 
promised you that an eye should be always kept on Mr. Riderhood 
through my friend Lightwood, I like occasionally to renew my 
assurance that I keep my promise, and keep my friend up to the 
mark." 

" I should not have doubted it, sir." 

"Generally, I confess myself a man to be doubted," returned 
Eugene, coolly, " for all that." 

" Why are you ? " asked the sharp Miss Wren. 

" Because, my dear," said the airy Eugene, "I am a bad idle 
doo:." 



222 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Then why clou't you reform and be a good dog ? " mquired Miss 
Wren. 

"Because, my dear," returned Eugene, "there's nobody who 
makes it worth my while. Have you considered my suggestion, 
Lizzie 1 " This in a lower voice, but only as if it were a graver 
matter ; not at all to the exclusion of the person of the house. 

" I have thought of it, Mr. Wrayburn, but I have not been able 
to make up my mind to accept it." 

" False pride ! " said Eugene. 

" I think not, Mr. Wrayburn. I hope not." 

" False pride ! " repeated Eugene. " Why, what else is it ? The 
thing is worth nothing in itself. The thing is worth nothing to me. 
What can it be worth to me ? You know the most I make of it. 
I propose to be of some use to somebody — which I never was in 
this world, and never shall be on any other occasion — by paying 
some qualified person of your own sex and age, so many (or rather 
so few) contemptible shillings, to come here, certain nights in the 
week, and give you certain instruction which you wouldn't want if 
you hadn't been a self-denying daughter and sister. You know 
that it's good to have it, or you would never have so devoted your- 
self to your brother's having it. Then why not have it : especially 
when our friend Miss Jenny here would profit by it too ? If I 
proposed to be the teacher, or to attend the lessons — obviously 
incongruous ! — but as to that I might as well be on the other 
side of the globe, or not on the globe at all. False pride, Lizzie. 
Because true pride wouldn't shame, or be ashamed by, your thank- 
less brother. True pride wouldn't have schoolmasters brought here, 
like doctors, to look at a bad case. True pride would go to work 
and do it. You know that, well enough, for you know that your 
own true pride would do it to-morrow if you had the ways and 
means which false pride won't let me supply. Very well. I add 
no more than this. Your false pride does wrong to yourself and 
does wrong to your dead father." 

"How to my father, Mr. Wrayburn?" she asked, with an 
anxious face. 

"How to your father? Can you ask! By perpetuating the 
consequences of his ignorant and blind obstinacy. By resolving 
not to set right the wrong he did you. By determining that the 
deprivation to which he condemned you, and which he forced upon 
you, shall always rest upon his head." 

It chanced to be a subtle string to sound, in her who had so 
spoken to her brother within the hour. It sounded far more forci- 
bly, because of the change in the speaker for the moment; the 
passing appearance of earnestness, complete conviction, injured 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 223 

resentment of suspicion, generous and unselfish interest. All these 
qualities, in him usually so light and careless, she felt to be insepa- 
rable from some touch of their opposites in her own breast. She 
thought, had she, so far below him and so different, rejected this 
disinterestedness because of some vain misgiving that he sought her 
out, or heeded any personal attractions that he might descry in her ? 
The poor girl, pure of heart and purpose, could not bear to think 
it. Sinking before her own eyes, as she suspected herself of it, she 
drooped her head as though she had done him some wicked and 
grievous injury, and broke into silent tears. 

" Don't be distressed," said Eugene, very, very kindly. " I hope 
it is not I who have distressed you. I meant no more than to put 
the matter in its true light before you ; though I acknowledge I 
did it selfishly enough, for I am disappointed." 

Disappointed of doing her a service. How else could he be dis- 
appointed ? 

" It won't break my heart," laughed Eugene ; "it won't stay by 
me eight-and-forty hours ; but I am genuinely disappointed. I had 
set my fancy on doing this little thing for you and for our friend 
Miss Jenny. The novelty of my doing anything in the least use- 
ful had its charms. I see, now, that I might have managed it 
better. I might have affected to do it wholly for our friend Miss 
J. I might have got myself up, morally, as Sir Eugene Bountiful. 
But upon my soul I can't make flourishes, and I would rather be 
disappointed than try." 

If he meant to follow home what was in Lizzie's thoughts, it was 
skilfully done. If he followed it by mere fortuitous coincidence, it 
was done by an evil chance. 

"It opened out so naturally before me," said Eugene. "The 
ball seemed so thrown into my hands by accident ! I happen to 
be originally brought into contact with you, Lizzie, on those two oc- 
casions that you know of I happen to be able to promise you that 
a watch shall be kept upon that false accuser, Riderhood. I hap- 
pen to be able to give you some little consolation in the darkest 
hour of your distress, by assuring you that I don't believe him. 
On the same occasion I tell you that I am the idlest and least of 
lawyers, but that I am better than none, in a case I have noted 
down with my own hand, and that you may be always sure of my 
best help, and incidentally of Lightwood's too, in your efforts to 
clear your father. So, it gradually takes my fancy that I may 
help you — so easily ! — to clear your father of that other blame 
which I mentioned a few minutes ago, and which is a just and 
real one. I hope I have explained myself, for I am heartily 
sorry to have distressed you. I hate to claim to mean well, but 



224 OUR MUT.UAL FRIEND. 

I really did mean honestly and simply well, and I want you to 
know it." 

"I have never doubted that, Mr. Wrayburn," said Lizzie; the 
more repentant, the less he claimed. 

" I am very glad to hear it. Though if you had quite understood 
my whole meaning at first, I think you would not have refused. 
Do you think you would 1 " 

"I — I don't know that I should, Mr. Wrayburn." 

" Well ! Then why refuse now you do understand it ? " 

"It's not easy for me to talk to you," returned Lizzie, in some 
confusion, "for you see all the consequences of what I say, as soon 
as T say it." 

"Take all the consequences," laughed Eugene, "and take away 
my disappointment. Lizzie Hexam, as I truly respect you, and as 
I am your friend and a poor devil of a gentleman, I i^rotest I don't 
even now understand why you hesitate." 

There was an appearance of openness, tmstfulness, unsuspecting 
generosity, in his words and manner, that won the poor girl over ; and 
not only won her over, but again caused her to feel as though she had 
been influenced by the opposite qualities, with vanity at their head. 

"I will not hesitate any longer, Mr. Wrayburn. I hope you 
will not think the worse of me for having hesitated at all. For 
myself and for Jenny — you let me answer for you, Jenny dear ? " 

The little creature had been leaning back attentive, with her 
elbows resting on the elbows of her chair, and her chin upon her 
hands. Without changing her attitude, she answered " Yes ! " so 
suddenly that it rather seemed as if she had chopped the monosyl- 
lable than spoken it. 

" For myself and for Jenny, I thankfully accept your kind offer." 

" Agreed ! Dismissed ! " said Eugene, giving Lizzie his hand 
before lightly waving it, as if he waved the whole subject away. 
" I hope it may not be often that so much is made of so little." 

Then he fell to talking playfully with Jenny Wren. " I think of 
setting up a doll, Miss Jenny," he said. 

"You had better not," replied the dressmaker. 

"Why not?" 

" You are sure to break it. All you children do." 

" But that makes good for trade, you know. Miss Wren," 
returned Eugene. "Much as people's breaking promises and 
contracts and bargains of all sorts, makes good for ??iy trade." 

"I don't know about that," Miss Wren retorted ; "but you had 
better by half set up a pen-wiper, and turn industrious and use it," 

" Why, if we were all as industrious as you, little Busy-Body, 
we should begin to work as soon as we could crawl, and there would 
be a bad thing ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 225 

"Do you mean," returned tlie little creature, with a flush suf- 
fusing her face, "bad for your backs and your legs ?" 

"No, no, no," said Eugene; shocked — to do him justice — at 
the thought of trifling with her infirmity. " Bad for business, bad 
for business. If we all set to work as soon as we could use our 
hands, it would be all over with dolls' dressmakers." 

"There's something in that," replied Miss Wren; "you have a 
sort of an idea in your noddle sometimes." Then, in a changed 
tone ; " Talking of ideas, my Lizzie," they were sitting side by side 
as they had sat at first, " I wonder how it happens that when I am 
work, work, working here, all alone in the summer-time, I smell 
•flowers," 

"As a common-place individual, I should say," Eugene suggested 
languidly — for he was growing weary of the person of the house 
— "that you smell flowers because you do smell flowers," 

" No I don't," said the little creature, resting one arm upon the 
elbow of her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking 
vacantly before her ; " this is not a flowery neighbourhood. It's 
anything but that. And yet, as I sit at work, I smell miles of 
flowers. I smell roses till I think I see the rose-leaves lying in 
heaps, bushels, on the floor. I smell fallen leaves till I put down 
my hand — so — and expect to make them rustle. I smell the 
white and the pink May in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that 
I never was among. For I have seen very few flowers indeed, in 
my life." 

" Pleasant fancies to have, Jenny dear ! " said her friend : with 
a glance towards Eugene as if she would have asked him whether 
they were given the child in compensation for her losses. 

" So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the birds I 
hear ! Oh ! " cried the little creature, holding out her hand and 
looking upward, " how they sing ! " 

There was something in the face and action for the moment quite 
inspired and beautiful. Then the chin dropped musingly upon the 
hand again. 

"I dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and my 
flowers smell better than other flowers. For when I was a little 
child," in a tone as though it were ages ago, "the children that I 
used to see early in the morning were very different from any 
others that I ever saw. They were not like me : they were not 
chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten ; they were never in pain. They 
were not like the children of the neighbours ; they never made me 
tremble all over, by setting up shrill noises, and they never mocked 
me. Such numbers of them, too ! All in white dresses, and with 
something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that I have 

Q 




THE PERSON OF THE HOUSE AND THE BAD CHILD. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 227 

never been able to imitate with my work, though I know it so well. 
They used to come clown in long bright slanting rows, and say 
all together, ' Who is this in pain ! Who is this in pain ! ' When I 
told them who it was, they answered, ' Come and play with us ! ' 
When I said, ' I never play ! I can't play ! ' they swept about me 
and took me up, and made me light. Then it was all delicious 
ease and rest till they laid me down, and said, all together, ' Have 
patience, and we will come again.' Whenever they came back, I 
used to know they were coming before I saw the long bright rows, 
by hearing them ask, all together a long way off, ' Who is this in 
pain ! Who is this in pain ! ' And I used to cry out, ' my 
blessed children, it's poor me. Have pity on me. Take me up 
and make me light ! ' " 

By degrees, as she progressed in this remembrance, the hand 
was raised, the late ecstatic look returned, and she became quite 
beautiful. Having so paused for a moment, silent, with a listen- 
ing smile upon her face, she looked round and recalled herself. 

"What poor fun you think me; don't you, Mr. Wrayburn? 
You may well look tired of me. But it's Saturday night, and 
I won't detain you." 

" That is to say, Miss Wren," observed Eugene, quite ready to 
profit by the hint, " you wish me to go ? " 

"Well, it's Saturday night," she returned, "and my child's 
coming home. And my child is a troublesome bad child, and 
costs me a world of scolding. I would rather you didn't see my 
child." 

"A doll?" said Eugene, not understanding, and looking for 
an explanation. 

But Lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, "Her 
father," he delayed no longer. He took his leave immediately. 
At the corner of the street he stopped to light another cigar, and 
possibly to ask himself what he was doing otherwise. If so, the 
answer was indefinite and vague. Who knows what he is doing, 
who is careless what he does ! 

A man stumbled against him as he turned away, who mumbled 
some maudlin apology. Looking after this man, Eugene saw him 
go in at the door by which he himself had just come out. 

On the man's stumbling into the room, Lizzie rose to leave it. 

"Don't go away. Miss Hexam," he said in a submissive manner, 
speaking thickly and with difiiculty. " Don't fly from unfortunate 
man in shattered state of health. Give poor invalid honour of 
your company. It ain't — ain't catching." 

Lizzie murmured that she had something to do in her own 
room, and went away up-stairs. 



228 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" How's my Jenny ? " said the man, timidly. " How's my 
Jenny Wren, best of children, object dearest affections broken- 
hearted invalid." 

To which the person of the house, stretching out her arm in an 
attitude of command, rei^lied with irresponsive asperity : "Go 
along with you ! Go along into your corner ! Get into your 
corner directly ! " 

The wretched spectacle made as if he would have offered some 
remonstrance ; but not venturing to resist the person of tlie house, 
thought better of it, and went and sat down on a particular chair 
of disgrace. 

" Oh-h-h ! " cried the person of the house, pointing her little 
finger. " You bad old boy ! Oh-h-h, you naughty, wicked creature ! 
What do you mean by it 1 " 

The shaking figure, unnerved and disjointed from head to foot, 
put out its two hands a little way, as making overtures of peace 
and reconciliation. Abject tears stood in its eyes, and stained the 
blotched red of its cheeks. The swollen lead-coloured under-lip 
trembled with a shameful whine. The whole indecorous thread- 
bare ruin, from the broken shoes to the prematurely-grey scanty 
hair, grovelled. Not with any sense worthy to be called a sense, 
of this dire reversal of the places of parent and child, but in a pit- 
iful expostulation to be let off from a scolding. 

"/ know your tricks and your manners," cried Miss Wren. 
" / know where you've been to ! " (which indeed it did not 
require discernment to discover). "Oh, you disgraceful old 
chap!" 

The very breathing of the figure was contemptible, as it 
laboured and rattled in that operation, like a blundering clock. 

" Slave, slave, slave, from morning to night," pursued the person 
of the house, " and all for this ! What do you mean by it ? " 

There was something in that emphasised " What," which ab- 
surdly frightened the figure. As often as the person of the house 
worked her way round to it — even as soon as he saw that it was 
coming — he collapsed in an extra degree. 

"I wish you had been taken up, and locked up," said the 
person of the house. " I wish you had been poked into cells and 
black holes, and run over by rats and spiders and beetles. / know 
their tricks and their manners, and they'd have tickled you nicely. 
Ain't you ashamed of yourself? " 

" Yes, my dear," stammered the father. 

"Then," said the person of the house, terrifying him by a 
grand muster of her spirits and forces before recurring to the 
empliatic word, " 7vhat do you mean by it ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 229 

" Circumstances over which had no control," was the miserable 
creature's plea in extenuation. 

"I'll circumstance you and control you too," retorted the 
person of the house, speaking with vehement sharpness, " if you 
talk in that way. I'll give you in charge to the police, and have you 
fined five shillings when you can't pay, and then I won't pay the 
money for you, and you'll be transported for life. How should 
you like to be transported for life ? " 

" Shouldn't like it. Poor shattered invalid. Trouble nobody 
long," cried the wretched figure. 

" Come, come ! " said the person of the house, tapping the table 
near her in a business-like manner, and shaking her head and 
her chin; "you know what you've got to do. Put down your 
money this instant." 

The obedient figure began to rummage in its pockets. 

" Spent a fortune out of your wages, I'll be bound ! " said the 
person of the house. " Put it here ! All you've got left ! 
Every farthing ! " 

Such a business as he made of collecting it from his dog's-eared 
pockets ; of expecting it in this pocket, and not finding it ; of not 
expecting it in that pocket, and passing it over; of finding no 
pocket where that other pocket ought to be ! 

" Is this all ? " demanded the person of the house, when a 
confused heap of pence and shillings lay on the table. 

" Got no more," was the rueful answer, with an accordant shake 
of the head. 

" Let me make sure. You know what you've got to do. Turn 
all your pockets inside out, and leave 'em so ! " cried the person 
of the house. 

He obeyed. And if anything could have made him look more 
abject or more dismally ridiculous than before, it would have been 
his so displaying himself. 

" Here's but seven and eightpence halfpenny ! " exclaimed Miss 
Wren, after reducing the heap to order. " Oh, you prodigal old 
son ! Now, you shall be starved." 

"No, don't starve me," he urged, whimpering. 

" If you were treated as you ought to be," said Miss Wren, 
"you'd be fed upon the skewers of cats' meat; only the skewers, 
after the cats had had the meat. As it is, go to bed." 

When he stumbled out of the corner to comply, he again put 
out both his hands, and pleaded : " Circumstances over which no 
control " 

"Get along with you to bed ! " cried Miss Wren, snapping him 
up. " Don't speak to me. I'm not going to forgive you. Go to 
bed this moment ! " 



230 . OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Seeing another emphatic " What " upon its way, he evaded it 
by complying, and was heard to shuffle heavily up-stairs, and shut 
his door, and throw himself on his bed. Within a little while 
afterwards, Lizzie came down. 

" Shall we have our supper, Jenny dear ? " 

"Ah ! bless us and save us, we need have something to keep us 
going," returned Miss Jenny, shrugging her shoulders. 

Lizzie laid a cloth upon the little bench (more handy for the 
person of the house than an ordinary table), and put upon it such 
plain fare as they were accustomed to have, and drew up a stool 
for herself. 

" Now for supper ! What are you thinking of, Jenny darling 1 " 

"I was thinking," she returned, coming out of a deep study, 
" what I would do to Him, if he should turn out a drunkard." 

"Oh, but he won't," said Lizzie. "You'll take care of that, 
beforehand." 

" I shall try to take care of it beforehand, but he might deceive 
me. Oh, my dear, , all those fellows with their tricks and their 
manners do deceive ! " With the little fist in full action. " And 
if so, I tell you what I think I'd do. When he was asleep, I'd 
make a spoon red hot, and I'd have some boiling liquor bubbling in 
a saucepan, and I'd take it out hissing, and I'd open his mouth with 
the other hand — or perhaps he'd sleep with his mouth ready open 
— and I'd pour it down his throat, and blister it and choke him." 

" I am sure you would do no such horrible thing," said Lizzie. 

" Shouldn't I ? Well ; perhaps I shouldn't. But I should like 
to ! " 

"I am equally sure you would not." 

" Not even like to ? Well, you generally know best. Only you 
haven't always lived among it as I have lived — and your back 
isn't bad and your legs are not queer." 

As . they went on with their supper, Lizzie tried to bring her 
round to that prettier and better state. But, the charm was 
broken. The perscm of the house was the person of a house full of 
sordid shames and cares, with an upper room in which that abased 
figure was infecting even innocent sleep with sensual brutality and 
degradation. The doll's dressmaker had become a little quaint 
shrew ; of the world, worldly ; of the earth, earthy. 

Poor doll's dressmaker ! How often so dragged down by hands 
that should have raised her up ; how often so misdirected when 
losing her way on the etei-nal road, and asking guidance ! Poor, 
poor, little doll's dressmaker ! 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 231 

CHAPTER III. 

A PIECE OF WOEK. 

Britannia, sitting meditating one fine day (perhaps in the 
attitude in which she is presented on the copper coinage), discovers 
all of a sudden that she wants Veneering in Parliament. It occurs 
to her that Veneering is a " representative man " — which cannot 
in these times be doubted — and that Her Majesty's faithful Com- 
mons are incomplete without him. So, Britannia mentions to a 
legal gentleman of her acquaintance that if Veneering will "put 
down " five thousand pounds, he may write a couple of initial let- 
ters after his name at the extremely cheap rate of two thousand 
five hundred per letter. It is clearly understood between Britannia 
and the legal gentleman that nobody is to take up the five thou- 
sand pounds, but that being put down they will disappear by magi- 
cal conjuration and enchantment. 

The legal gentleman in Britannia's confidence going straight 
from that lady to Veneering, thus commissioned. Veneering declares 
himself highly flattered, but recjuires breathing time to ascertain 
"whether his friends will rally round him." Above all things, he 
says, it behoves him to be clear, at a crisis of this importance, 
"whether his friends will rally round him." The legal gentle- 
man, in the interests of his client, cannot allow much time for this 
purpose, as the lady rather thinks she knows somebody prepared 
to put down six thousand pounds ; but he says he will give Veneer- 
ing four hours. 

Veneering then says to Mrs. Veneering, " We must work," and 
throws himself into a Hansom cab. Mrs. Veneering in the same 
moment relinquishes baby to Nurse ; presses her aquiline hands 
upon her brow, to arrange the throbbing intellect within ; orders 
out the carriage ; and repeats in a distracted and devoted manner, 
compounded of Ophelia and any self-immolating female of antiquity 
you may prefer, " We must work." 

Veneering having instructed his driver to charge at the Public 
in the streets, like the life-guards at Waterloo, is driven furiously to 
Duke Street, St. James's. There, he finds Twemlow in his lodg- 
ings, fresh from the hands of a secret artist who has been doing some- 
thing to his hair with yolks of eggs. The process requiring that 
Twemlow shall, for two hours after the application, allow his hair to 
stick upright and dry gradually, he is in an appropriate state for 
the receipt of startling intelligence ; looking equally like the Monu- 
ment on Fish Street Hill, and King Priam on a certain incendiary 
occasion not wholly unknown as a neat point from the classics. 



232 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" My dear Twemlow," says Veneering, grasping both his hands, 
" as the dearest and oldest of my friends " 

(" Then there can be no more doubt about it in future," thinks 
Twemlow, "and I am ! ") 

" — Are you of opinion that your cousin, Lord Snigsworth, would 
give his name as a Member of my Committee ? I don't go so far 
as to ask for his lordship ; I only ask for his name. Do you think 
he would give me his name ? " 

In sudden low spirits, Twemlow replies, "I don't think he 
would." 

" My political opinions," says Veneering, not previously aware of 
having any, "are identical with those of Lord Snigsworth, and 
perhaps as a matter of public feeling and public principle. Lord 
Snigsworth would give me his name." 

"It might be so," says Twemlow; "but " And perplex- 
edly scratching his head, forgetful of the yolks of eggs, is the more 
discomfited by being reminded how sticky he is. 

" Between such old and intimate friends as ourselves," pursues 
Veneering, "there should in such a case be no reserve. Promise 
me that if I ask you to do anything for me which you don't like to 
do, or feel the slightest difficulty in doing, you will freely tell me 
so." 

This, Twemlow is so kind as to promise, with every appearance 
of most heartily intending to keep his word. 

" Would you have any objection to write down to Snigs worthy 
Park, and ask this favour of Lord Snigsworth 1 Of course if it 
were granted I should know that I owed it solely to you ; while at 
the same time you would put it to Lord Snigsworth entirely upon 
public grounds. Would you have any objection ? " 

Says Twemlow, with his hand to his forehead, "You have 
exacted a promise from me." 

" I have, my dear Twemlow." 

" And you expect me to keep it honourably." 

" I do, my dear Twemlow." 

"Ow the whole then; — observe me," urges Twemlow with 
great nicety, as if, in the case of its having been off the whole, he 
would have done it directly — ^' on the whole, I must beg you to 
excuse me from addressing any communication to Lord Snigsworth." 

" Bless you, bless you ! " says Veneering ; horribly disappointed, 
but grasping him by both hands again, in a particularly fervent 
manner. 

It is not to be wondered at that poor Twemlow should decline 
(to inflict a letter on his noble cousin (who has gout in the temper), 
Anasrauch as his noble cousin, who allows him a small ainiuity on 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 233 

which he lives, takes it out of him, as the phrase goes, in extreme 
severity; putting him, when he visits at Snigsworthy Park, under 
a kind of martial law ; ordaining that he shall hang his hat on a*) 
particular peg, sit on a particular chair, talk on particular subjects 
to particular people, and perform particular exercises; such as 
sounding the praises of the Family Varnish (not to say Pictures), 
and abstaining from the choicest of the Family Wines unless 
expressly invited to partake. . 

" One thing, however, I cmi do for you," says Twemlow ; " and] 
that is, work for you." 

Veneering blesses him again. 

"I'll go," says Twemlow, in a rising hurry of spirits, "to the 
club ; — let us see now ; what o'clock is it ? " 

" Twenty minutes to eleven." 

" I'll be," says Twemlow, "at the club by ten minutes to twelve, 
and I'll never leave it all day." 

Veneering feels that his friends are rallying round him, and says, 
" Thank you, thank you. I knew I could rely upon you. I said 
to Anastatia before leaving home just now to come to you — of 
course the first friend I have seen on a subject so momentous to me, 
my dear Twemlow — I said to Anastatia, 'We must work.' " 

"You were right, you were right," replies Twemlow. "Tell 
me. Is she working ? " 

"She is," says Veneering. 

" Good ! " cries Twemlow, polite little gentleman that he is. 
"A woman's tact is invaluable. To have the dear sex with us, is 
to have everything with us." 

" But you have not imparted to me," remarks Veneering, " what 
you think of my entering the House of Commons ? " 

" I think," rejoins Twemlow, feelingly, " that it is the best club 
in London." 

Veneering again blesses him, plunges down-stairs, rushes into his 
Hansom, and directs the driver to be up and at the British Public^ 
and to charge into the City. 

Meanwhile Twemlow, in an increasing hurry of spirits, gets his 
hair down as well as he can — which is not very well ; for, after 
these glutinous applications it is restive, and has a surface on it 
somewhat in the nature of pastry — and gets to the club by the 
appointed time. At the club he promptly secures a large window, 
writing materials, and all the newspapers, and establishes himself, 
immovable, to be respectfully contemplated by Pall Mall. Some- 
times, when a man enters who nods to him, Twemlow says, "Do 
you know Veneering ? " Man says, "No; member of the club?" 
Twemlow says, "Yes. Coming in for Pocket-Breaches." Man 



234 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

says, " All ! Hope he may find it worth the money ! " yawns, and 
saunters out. Towards six o'clock of the afternoon, Twemlow 
begins to persuade himself that he is positively jaded with work, 
and thinks it much to be regretted that he was not brought up as 
a Parliamentary agent. 

From Twemlow's, Veneering dashes at Podsnap's place of busi- j 
ness. Finds Podsnap reading the paper, standing, and inclined tcr 
be oratorical over the astonishing discovery he has made, that Italy 
is not England. Respectfully entreats Podsnap's pardon for stop- 
ping the flow of his words of wisdom, and informs him what is in 
the wind. Tells Podsnap that their political opinions are iden- 
tical. Gives Podsnap to understand that he, Veneering, formed 
his political opinions while sitting at the feet of him, Podsnap. 
Seeks earnestly to know whether Podsnap "will rally round 
him?" 

Says Podsnap, something sternly, " Now, first of all. Veneering, 
do you ask my advice 1 " 

Veneering falters that as so old and so dear a friend 

"Yes, yes, that's all very well," says Podsnap; "but have you 
made up your mind to take this borough of Pocket-Breaches on its 
own terms, or do you ask my opinion whether you shall take it or 
leave it alone 1 " 

Veneering repeats that his heart's desire and his soul's thirst are 
that Podsnap shall rally round him. 

" Now, I'll be plain with you. Veneering," says Podsnap, knit- 
ting his brows. " You will infer that / don't care about Parlia- 
ment, from the fact of my not being there ? " 

Why, of course Veneering knows that ! Of course Veneering 
knows that if Podsnap chose to go there, he would be there, in 
a space of time that might be stated by the light and thoughtless 
as a jiffy. 

"It is not worth my while," pursues Podsnap, becoming hand- 
somely mollified, " and it is the reverse of important to my position. 
But it is not my wish to set myself up as law for another man, 
differently situated. You think it is worth i/ou?- while, and is 
important to i/our position. Is that so ? " 

Always with the proviso that Podsnap will rally round him, 
Veneering thinks it is so. 

"Then you don't ask my advice," says Podsnap. "Good. 
Then I won't give it you. But you do ask my help. Good. 
Then I'll work for you." 

Veneering instantly blesses him, and apprises him that Twemlow 
is already working. Podsnap does not quite approve that anybody 
should be already working — regarding it rather in the light of a 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 235 

liberty — but tolerates Twemlow, and says he is a well-connected 
old female who will do no harm. 

" I have nothing very particular to do to-day," adds Podsnap, 
" and I'll mix with some influential people. I had engaged myself 
to dinner, but I'll send Mrs. Podsnap and get off going myself, and 
I'll dine with you at eight. It's important we should report 
progress and compare notes. Now, let me see. You ought to 
have a couple of active energetic fellows, of gentlemanly manners, 
to go about." 

Veneering, after cogitation, thinks of Boots and Brewer. 

" Whom I have met at your house," says Podsnap. " Yes. 
They'll do very well. Let them each have a cab, and go about." 

Veneering immediately mentions what a blessing he feels it, to 
possess a friend capable of such grand administrative suggestions, 
and really is elated at this going about of Boots and Brewer, as an 
idea wearing an electioneering aspect and looking desperately like 
business. Leaving Podsnap, at a hand-galop, he descends upon 
Boots and Brewer, who enthusiastically rally round him by at once 
bolting off in cabs, taking opposite directions. Then Veneering 
repairs to the legal gentleman in Britannia's confidence, and with 
him transacts some delicate affairs of business, and issues an 
address to the independent electors of Pocket-Breaches, announcing 
that he is coming among them for their suffrages, as the mariner 
returns to the home of his early childhood : a phrase which is none 
the worse for his never having been near the place in his life, and 
not even now distinctly knowing where it is. 

Mrs. Veneering, during the same eventful hours, is not idle. 
No sooner does the carriage turn out, all complete, than she turns 
into it, all complete, and gives the word, " To Lady Tippins's." 
That charmer dwells over a staymaker's in the Belgravian Borders, 
with a life-size model in the window on the ground floor, of a dis- 
tinguished beauty in a blue petticoat, stay-lace in hand, looking 
over her shoulder at the town in innocent surprise. As well she 
may, to find herself dressing under the circumstances. 

Lady Tippins at home ? Lady Tippins at home, with the room 
darkened, and her back (like the lady's at the ground-floor window, 
though for a different reason) cunningly turned towards the light. 
Lady Tippins is so surprised by seeing her dear Mrs. Veneering so 
early — in the middle of the night, the pretty creature calls it — 
that her eyelids almost go up, under the influence of that emotion. 

To whom Mrs. Veneering incoherently communicates, how that 
Veneering has been offered Pocket-Breaches; how that it is the 
time for rallying round ; how that Veneering has said, " We must 
work;" how that she is here, as a wife and mother, to entreat 



236 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Lady Tippins to work ; how that the carriage is at Lady Tippins's 
disposal for purposes of work ; how that she, proprietress of said 
bran new elegant equipage, will return home on foot — on bleeding 
feet if need be — to work (not specifying how), until she drops by 
the side of baby's crib. 

"My love," says Lady Tippins, "compose yourself; we'll bring 
him in." And Lady Tippins really does work, and work the 
Veneering horses too ; for she clatters about town all day, calling 
upon everybody she knows, and showing her entertaining powers 
and green fan to immense advantage, by rattling on with. My dear 
soul, what do you think ? What do you suppose me to be 1 You'll 
never guess. I'm pretending to be an electioneering agent. And 
for what place of all places ? Pocket- Breaches. And why 1 Be- 
cause the dearest friend I have in the world has bought it. And 
who is the dearest friend I have in the world? A man of the 
name of Veneering. Not omitting his wife, who is thef other 
dearest friend I have in the world; and I positively declare I 
forgot their baby, who is the other. And we are carrying on this 
little farce to keep up appearances, and isn't it refreshing ! Then, 
my precious child, the fun of it is that nobody knows who these 
Veneerings are, and that they know nobody, and that they have a 
house out of the Tales of the Genii, and give dinners out of the 
Arabian Nights. Curious to see 'em, my dear 1 Say you'll know 
'em. Come and dine with 'em. They shan't bore you. Say who 
shall meet you. We'll make up a party of our own, and I'll 
engage that they shall not interfere with you for one single moment. 
You really ought to see their gold and silver camels. I call their 
dinner-table, the Caravan. Do come and dine with my Veneerings, 
my own Veneerings, my exclusive property, the dearest friends I 
have in the world ! And above all, my dear, be sure you promise 
me your vote and interest and all sorts of plumpers for Pocket- 
Breaches; for we couldn't think of spending sixpence on it, my 
love, and can only consent to be brought in by the spontaneous 
thingummies of the incorruptible whatdoyoucallums. 

Now, the point of view seized by the bewitching Tippins, that 
this same working and rallying round is to keep up appearances, 
may have something in it, but not all the truth. More is done, 
or considered to be done — which does as well — by taking cabs, 
and "going about," than the fair Tippins knew of. Many vast 
vague reputations have been made, solely by taking cabs and going 
about. This particularly obtains in all Parliamentary affairs. 
Whether the business in hand be to get a man in, or get a man 
out, or get a man over, or promote a railway, or jockey a railway, 
or what else, nothing is understood to be so effectual as scouring 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 237 

nowhere in a violent hurry — in short, as taking cabs and going 
about. 

Probably because this reason is in the air, Twemlow, far from 
being singular in his persuasion that he works like a Trojan, is 
capped by Podsnap, who in his turn is capped by Boots and 
Brewer, At eight o'clock, when all these hard workers assemble 
to dine at Veneering's, it is understood that the cabs of Boots and 
Brewer mustn't leave the door, but that pails of water must be 
brought from the nearest baiting-place, and cast over the horses' 
legs on the very spot, lest Boots and Brewer should have instant 
occasion to mount and away. Those fleet messengers require the 
Analytical to see that their hats are deposited where they can be 
laid hold of at an instant's notice ; and they dine (remarkably well 
though) with the air of firemen in charge of an engine, expecting 
intelligence of some tremendous conflagration. 

Mrs. Veneering faintly remarks, as dinner opens, that many 
such days would be too much for her. 

"Many such days would be too much for all of us," says 
Podsnap ; "but we'll bring him in ! " 

" We'll bring him in," says Lady Tippins, sportively waving her 
green fan, " Veneering for ever ! " 

"We'll bring him in ! " says Twemlow. 

" We'll bring him in ! " says Boots and Brewer. 

Strictly speaking, it would be hard to show cause why they 
should not bring him in, Pocket-Breaches having closed its little 
bargain, and there being no opposition. However, it is agreed 
that they must "work" to the last, and that if they did not work, 
something indefinite would happen. It is likewise agreed that 
they are all so exhausted with the work behind them, and need to 
be so fortified for the work before them, as to require peculiar 
strengthening from Veneering's cellar. Therefore, the Analytical 
has orders to produce the cream of the cream of his binns, and 
therefore it falls out that rallying becomes rather a trying word for 
the occasion ; Lady Tippins being observed gamely to inculcate the 
necessity of rearing round their dear Veneering ; Podsnap advo- 
cating roaring round him ; Boots and Brewer declaring their inten- 
tion of reeling round him ; and Veneering thanking his devoted 
friends one and all, with great emotion, for rarullaruUing round 
him. 

In these inspiring moments, Brewer strikes out an idea which is 
the great hit of the day. He consults his watch, and says (like 
Guy Fawkes), he'll now go down to the House of Commons and 
see how things look. 

" I'll keep about the lobby for an hour or so," says Brewer, with 



238 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

a deeply mysterious countenance, " and if things look well, I won't 
come back, but will order my cab for nine in the morning." 

"You couldn't do better," says Podsnap. 

Veneering expresses his inability ever to acknowledge this last 
service. Tears stand in Mrs. Veneering's affectionate eyes. Boots 
shows envy, loses ground, and is regarded as possessing a second- 
rate mind. They all crowd to the door to see Brewer off. Brewer 
says to his driver, " Now, is your horse pretty fresh ? " eyeing the 
animal with critical scrutiny. Driver says he's as fresh as butter. 
"Put him along then," says Brewer; "House of Commons." 
Driver darts up. Brewer leaps in, they cheer him as he departs, 
and Mr. Podsnap says, "Mark my words, sir. That's a man of 
resource ; that's a man to make his way in life." 

When the time comes for Veneering to deliver a neat and appro- 
priate stammer to the men of Pocket-Breaches, only Podsnap and 
Twemlow accompany him by railway to that sequestered spot. 
The legal gentleman is at the Pocket-Breaches Branch Station, 
with an open carriage with a printed bill, " Veneering for ever ! " 
stuck upon it, as if it were a wall ; and they gloriously proceed, 
amidst the grins of the populace, to a feeble little town hall on 
crutches, with some onions and bootlaces under it, which the legal 
gentleman says are a Market ; and from the front window of that 
edifice Veneering speaks to the listening earth. In the moment of 
his taking his hat off, Podsnap, as per agreement made with 
Mrs. Veneering, telegraphs to that wife and mother, " He's up." 

Veneering loses his way in the usual No Thoroughfares of speech, 
and Podsnap and Tremlow say Hear hear ! and sometimes, when 
he can't by any means back himself out of some very unlucky No 
Thoroughfare, " He-a-a-r He-a-a-r ! " with an air of facetious con- 
viction, as if the ingenuity of the thing gave them a sensation of 
exquisite pleasure. But Veneering makes two remarkably good 
points ; so good, that they are supposed to have been suggested to 
him by the legal gentleman in Britannia's confidence, while briefly 
conferring on tlie stairs. 

Point the first is this. Veneering institutes an original compar- 
ison between the country and a ship ; pointedly calling the sliip, 
the Vessel of tlie State, and the Minister the Man at the Helm. 
Veneering's object is to let Pocket-Breaches know that his friend 
on his right (Podsnap) is a man of wealth. Consequently says he, 
"And, gentlemen, when the timbers of the Vessel of the State are 
unsound and the Man at the Helm is unskilful, would those great 
Marine Insurers, who rank among our world-ftimed merchant- 
princes — would they insure her, gentlemen ? Would they under- 
write her ? Would they incur a risk in her ? Would they have 



S'}f$^"'im'M 



f'i|i'''ili'!M':ll'"illlil)liiill;iiii 
,,,iliiii 

I 




BRINGING HIM IN. 



240 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

confidence in her? Why, gentlemen, if I appealed to my honourable 
friend upon my right, himself among the greatest and most respected 
of that great and much respected class, he would answer No ! " 

Point the second is this. The telling fact that Tremlow is 
related to Lord Snigsworth, must be let oft*. Veneering supposes a 
state of public affairs that probably never could by any possibility 
exist (though this is not quite certain, in consequence oif his picture 
being unintelligible to himself and everybody else), and thus pro- 
ceeds. "Why, gentlemen, if I were to indicate such a programme 
to any class of society, I say it would be received with derision, 
w^ould be pointed at by the finger of scorn. If I indicated such a 
programme to any worthy and intelligent tradesman of your town 
— nay, I will here be personal, and say Our town — what would 
he reply 1 He would reply, ' Away with it ! ' That's what he 
would reply, gentlemen. In his honest indignation he w^ould reply, 
' Away with it ! ' But suppose I mounted higher in the social 
scale. Suppose I drew my arm through the arm of my respected 
friend upon my left, and, walking with him through the ancestral 
woods of his family, and under the spreading beeches of Snigs- 
worthy Park, approached the noble hall, crossed the courtyard, 
entered by the door, went up the staircase, and, passing from room 
to room, found myself at last in the august presence of my friend's 
near kinsman. Lord Snigsworth. And suppose I said to that ven- 
erable earl, ' My Lord, I am here before your lordship, presented 
by your lordship's near kinsman, my friend upon my left, to indicate 
that programme;' what would his lordship answer? Why, he 
would answer, ' Away with it ! ' That's what he would answer, 
gentlemen. ' Away with it ! ' Unconsciously using, in his exalted 
sphere, the exact language of the worthy and intelligent tradesman 
of our town, the near and dear kinsman of my friend upon my left 
would answer in his wrath, ' Away with it ! '" 

Veneering finishes with this last success, and Mr. Podsnap tele- 
graphs to Mrs. Veneering, " He's down." 

Then, dinner is had at the Hotel with the legal gentleman, and 
then there are in due succession, nomination and declaration. 
Finally Mr. Podsnap telegraphs to Mrs. Veneering, "We have 
brought him in." 

Another gorgeous dinner awaits them on their return to the 
Veneering halls, and Lady Tippins awaits them, and Boots and 
Brewer await them. There is a modest assertion on everybody's 
part that everybody single-handed "brought him in;" but in the 
main it is conceded by all, that that stroke of business on Brewer's 
part, in going down to tlie House that night to see how things 
looked, was the master-stroke. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 241 

A touching little incident is related by Mrs. Veneering, in the 
course of the evening. Mrs. Veneering is habitually disposed to 
be tearful, and has an extra disposition that way after her late 
excitement. Previous to withdrawing from the dinner-table with 
Lady Tippins, she says, in a pathetic and physically weak manner : 

" You will all think it foolish of me, I know, but I must mention 
it. As I sat by Baby's crib on the night before the election, Baby 
was very uneasy in her sleep." 

The Analytical chemist, who is gloomily looking on, has diaboli- 
cal impulses to suggest " Wind " and throw up his situation ; but 
represses them. 

" After an interval almost convulsive. Baby curled her little hands 
in one another and smiled." 

Mrs. Veneering stopping here, Mr. Podsnap deems it incumbent 
on him to say : "I wonder why ! " 

" Could it be, I asked myself," says Mrs. Veneering, looking 
about her for her pocket-handkerchief, " that the Fairies were tell- 
ing Baby that her papa would shortly be an M. P. ? " 

So overcome by the sentiment is Mrs. Veneering, that they all 
get up to make a clear stage for Veneering, who goes round the 
table to the rescue, and bears her out backward, with her feet 
impressively scraping the carpet : after remarking that her work 
has been too much for her strength. Whether the fairies made 
any mention of the five thousand pounds, and it disagreed wdth 
Baby, is not speculated upon. 

Poor little Tremlow, quite done up, is touched, and still continues 
touched after he is safely housed over the livery-stable yard in Duke 
Street, Saint James's. But there, upon his sofa, a tremendous con- 
sideration breaks in upon the mild gentleman, putting all softer 
considerations to the rout. 

" Gracious heavens ! Now I have time to think of it, he never 
saw one of his constituents in all his days, until we saw them 
together ! " 

After having paced the room in distress of mind, with his hand 
to his forehead, the innocent Tremlow returns to his sofa and 
moans : 

"I shall either go distracted, or die, of this man. He comes 
upon me too late in life. I am not strong enough to bear him ! " 



242 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

CHAPTER IV. 

CUPID PROMPTED. 

To use the cold language of the world, Mrs. Alfred Lammle 
rapidly improved the acquaintance of Miss Podsnap. To use the 
warm language of Mrs. Lammle, she and her sweet Georgiana soon 
became one : in heart, in mind, in sentiment, in soul. 

Whenever Georgiana could escape from the thraldom of Pod- 
snappery; could throw off the bedclothes of the custard-coloured 
jjhaeton, and get up ; could shrink out of the range of her mother's 
rocking, and (so to speak) rescue her poor little frosty toes from 
being rocked over ; she repaired to her friend, Mrs. Alfred Lammle. 
Mrs. Podsnap by no means objected. As a consciously " splendid 
woman," accustomed to overhear herself so denominated by elderly 
osteologists pursuing their studies in dinner society, Mrs. Podsnap 
could dispense with her daughter. Mr. Podsnap, for his part, on 
being informed where Georgiana was, swelled with patronage of 
the Lammles. That they, when unable to lay hold of him, 
should respectfully grasp at the hem of his mantle; that they, 
when they could not bask in the glory of him the sun, should take 
up with the pale reflected light of the watery young moon his 
daughter, appeared quite natural, becoming, and proper. It gave 
him a better opinion of tne discretion of the Lammles than he had 
heretofore held, as showing that they appreciated the value of the 
connection. So, Georgiana repairing to her friend, Mr. Podsnap 
went out to dinner, and to dinner, and yet to dinner, arm in arm 
with Mrs. Podsnap ; settling his obstinate head in his cravat and 
shirt-collar, much as if he were performing on the Pandean pipes, 
in his own honour, the triumphal march. See the conquering Pod- 
snap comes, Sound the trumpets, beat the drums ! 

It was a trait in Mr. Podsnap's character (and in one form or 
other it will be generally seen to pervade the depths and shallows 
of Podsnappery), that he could not endure a hint of disparagement 
of any friend or acquaintance of his. "How dare you?" he 
would seem to say, in such a case. "What do you mean? I 
have licensed this person. This person has taken out my certifi- 
cate. Through this person you strike at me, Podsnap the Great. 
And it is not that I particularly care for the person's dignity, 
but that I do most particularly care for Podsnap's." Hence, if 
any one in his presence had presumed to doubt the responsibility 
of the Lammles, he would have been mightily huffed. Not that 
any one did, for Veneering, M.P., was always the authority for 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 243 

their being very rich, and perhaps believed it. As indeed he 
might, if he chose, for anything he knew of the matter. 

Mr. and Mrs. Lammle's house in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, 
was but a temporary residence. It had done well enough, they 
informed their friends, for Mr. Lammle when a bachelor, but it 
would not do now. So, they were always looking at palatial 
residences in the best situations, and always very nearly taking 
or buying one, but never quite concluding the bargain. Hereby 
they made for themselves a shining little reputation apart. People 
said, on seeing a vacant palatial residence, " The very thing for 
the Lammles ! " and wrote to the Lammles about it, and the 
Lammles always went to look at it, but unfortunately it never 
exactly answered. In short, they suffered so many disappoint- 
ments, that they began to think it would be necessary to build 
a palatial residence. And hereby they made another shining 
reputation; many persons of their acquaintance becoming by an- 
ticipation dissatisfied with their own houses, and envious of the 
non-existent Lammle structure. 

The handsome fittings and furnishings of the house in Sackville 
Street were piled thick and high over the skeleton up-stairs, and 
if it ever whispered from under its load of upholstery, " Here I 
am in the closet ! " it was to very few ears, and certainly never 
to Miss Podsnap's. What Miss Podsnap was particularly charmed 
with, next to the graces of her friend, was the happiness of her 
friend's married life. This was frequently their theme of con- 
versation. 

"I am sure," said Miss Podsnap, "Mr. Lammle is like a 
lover. At least I — I should think he was." 

"Georgiana, darling!" said Mrs. Lammle, holding up a fore- 
finger. " Take care ! " 

" Oh my goodness me ! " exclaimed Miss Podsnap, reddening. 
" What have I said now ? " 

"Alfred, you know," hinted Mrs. Lammle, playfully shaking her 

head. " You were never to say Mr. Lammle anymore, Georgiana." 

" Oh ! Alfred, then. I am glad it's no worse. I was afraid I 

had said something shocking. I am always saying something 

wrong to ma." 

" To me, Georgiana dearest ? " 

" No, not to you ; you are not ma. I wish you were." 
Mrs. Lammle bestowed a sweet and loving smile upon her 
friend, which Miss Podsnap returned as she best could. They 
sat at lunch in Mrs. Lammle's own boudoir. 

" And so, dearest Georgiana, Alfred is like your notion of a 
lover?" 



244 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" I don't say that, Sophronia," Georgiana replied, beginning to 
conceal her elbows. "I haven't any notion of a lover. The 
dreadful wretches that ma brings up at places to torment me, are 
not lovers. I only mean that Mr. " 

" Again, dearest Georgiana ? " 

"That Alfred " 

" Sounds much better, darling." 

" — Loves you so. He always treats you with such delicate 
gallantly and attention. Now, don't he 1 " 

" Truly, my dear," said Mrs. Lammle, with a rather singular 
expression crossing her face. " I believe that he loves me, fully 
as much as I love him." 

" Oh, what happiness ! " exclaimed Miss Podsnap. 

"But do you laiow, my Georgiana," Mrs. Lammle resumed 
presently, "that there is something suspicious in your enthusiastic 
sympathy with Alfred's tenderness ? " 

" Good gracious no, I hope not ! " 

"Doesn't it rather suggest," said Mrs. Lammle archly, "that 
my Georgiana's little heart is " 

" Oh don't ! " Miss Podsnap blushingly besought her. " Please 
don't ! I assure you, Sophronia, that I only praise Alfred, because 
he is your husband and so fond of you." 

Sophronia's glance was as if a rather new light broke in upon 
her. It shaded off into a cool smile, as she said, with her eyes 
upon her lunch, and her eyebrows raised : 

" You are quite wrong, my love, in your guess at my meaning. 
What I insinuated was, that my Georgiana's little heart was 
growing conscious of a vacancy." 

" No, no, no," said Georgiana. " I wouldn't have anybody say 
anything to me in that way for I don't know how many thousand 
pounds." 

"In what way, my Georgiana 1 " inquired Mrs. Lammle, still smil- 
ing coolly, with her eyes upon her lunch, and her eyebrows raised. 

"Tow know," returned poor little Miss Podsnap. "I think 
I should go out of my mind, Sophronia, with vexation and shy- 
ness and detestation, if anybody did. It's enough for me to see 
how loving you and your husband are. That's a different thing. 
I couldn't bear to have anything of that sort going on with 
myself. I should beg and pray to — to have the person taken 
away and trampled upon." 

Ah ! here was Alfred. Having stolen in unobserved, he play- 
fully leaned on the back of Soplironia's chair, and, as Miss 
Podsnap saw him, put one of Sophronia's wandering locks to his 
lips, and waved a kiss from it towards Miss Podsnap. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 245 

" What is this about husbands and detestations ? " inquired 
the captivating Alfred. 

"Why, they say," returned his wife, "that listeners never 
hear any good of themselves ; though you — but pray how long 
have you been here, sir ? " 

"This instant arrived, my own." 

" Then I may go on — though if you had been here a moment 
or two sooner, you would have heard your praises sounded by 
Georgiana," 

" Only, if they were to be called praises at all, which I really 
don't think they were," explained Miss Podsnap in a flutter, "for 
being so devoted to Sophronia." 

" Sophronia ! " murmured Alfred. " My life ! " and kissed her 
hand. In return for which she kissed his watch-chain. 

" But it was not I who was to be taken away and trampled 
upon, I hope ? " said Alfred, drawing a seat between them. 

"Ask Georgiana, my soul," replied his wife. 

Alfred touchingly appealed to Georgiana. 

" Oh, it was nobody," replied Miss Podsnap. " It was nonsense." 

" But if you are determined to know, Mr. Inquisitive Pet, as I 
suppose you are," said the happy and fond Sophronia, smiling, "it 
was any one who should venture to aspire to Georgiana." 

"Sophronia, my love," remonstrated Mr. Lammle, becoming 
graver, "you are not serious?" 

"Alfred, my love," returned his wife, "I dare say Georgiana 
was not, but I am." 

"Now this," said Mr. Lammle, " shows the accidental combina- 
tions that there are in things ! Could you believe, my Ownest, 
that I came in here with the name of an aspirant to our Georgiana 
on my lips ? " 

" Of course I could believe, Alfred," said Mrs. Lammle, " any- 
thing that you told me." 

" You dear one ! And I anything that you told me." 

How delightful those interchanges, and the looks accompanying 
them ! Now, if the skeleton up-stairs had taken that opportunity, 
for instance, of calling out " Here I am, suffocating in the closet ! " 

" I give you my honour, my dear Sophronia " 

"And I know what that is, love," said she. 

" You do, my darling — that I came into the room all but utter- 
ing young Fledgeby's name. Tell Georgiana, dearest, about young 
Fledgeby." 

" Oh no, don't ! Please don't ! " cried Miss Podsnap, putting 
her fingers in her ears. " I'd rather not." 

Mrs. Lammle laughed in her gayest manner, and, removing her 



246 OUR MUTUAL i'RIEND. 

Georgiana's unresisting hands, and playfully holding them in her 
own at arm's length, sometimes near together and sometimes wide 
apart, went on : 

"You must know, you dearly beloved little goose, that once 
upon a time there was a certain person called young Fledgeby. 
And this young Fledgeby, who was of an excellent family and 
rich, was known to two other certain persons, dearly attached to 
one another and called Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Lammle. So this 
young Fledgeby, being one night at the play, there sees with 
Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Lammle a certain heroine called " 

" No, don't say Georgiana Podsnap ! " pleaded that young lady 
almost in tears. "Please don't. Oh do do do say somebody else ! 
Not Georgiana Podsnap. Oh don't, don't, don't ! " 

"No other," said Mrs. Lammle, laughing airily, and, full of 
affectionate blandishments, opening and closing Georgiana's arms 
like a pair of compasses, "than my little Georgiana Podsnap. So 
this young Fledgeby goes to that Alfred Lammle and says " 

" Oh, ple-e-e-ease don't ! " cried Georgiana, as if the supplication 
were being squeezed out of her powerful compression. " I so hate 
him for saying it ! " 

"For saying what, my dear?" laughed Mrs. Lammle. 

" Oh, I don't know what he said," cried Georgiana wildly, "but 
I hated him all the same for saying it." 

"My dear," said Mrs. Lammle, always laughing in her most 
captivating way, "the poor young fellow only says that he is 
stricken all of a heap." 

" Oh, what shall I ever do ! " interposed Georgiana. " Oh, my 
goodness, what a Fool he must be ! " 

" — And implores to be asked to dinner, and to make a fourth 
at the play another time. And so he dines to-morrow and goes to 
the Opera with us. That's all. Except, my dear Georgiana — 
and what will you think of this ! — that he is infinitely shyer than 
you, and far more afraid of you than you ever were of any one in 
all your days ! " 

In perturbation of mind Miss Podsnap still fumed and plucked 
at her hands a little, but could not help laughing at the notion of 
anybody's being afraid of her. With that advantage, Sophronia 
flattered her and rallied her more successfully, and then the insinu- 
ating Alfred flattered her and rallied her, and promised that at any 
moment when she might require that service at his hands, he 
would take young Fledgeby out and trample on him. Thus it 
remained amicably understood that young Fledgeby was to come to 
admire, and that Georgiana was to come to be admired ; and 
Georgiana with the entirely new sensation in her breast of having 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 247 

that prospect before her, and with many kisses from her dear 
Sophronia in present possession, preceded six feet one of discon- 
tented footman (an amount of the article that always came for her 
when she walked home) to her father's dwelling. 

The happy pair being left together, Mrs. Lammle said to her 
husband : 

" If I understand this girl, sir, your dangerous fascinations have 
produced some effect upon her. I mention the conquest in good 
time, because I apprehend your scheme to be more important to 
you than your vanity." 

There was a mirror on the wall before them, and her eyes just 
caught him smirking in it. She gave the reflected image a look of 
the deepest disdain, and the image received it in the glass. Next 
moment they quietly eyed each other, as if they, the principals, 
had had no part in that expressive transaction. 

It may have been that Mrs. Lammle tried in some manner to 
excuse her conduct to herself by depreciating the poor little victim 
of whom she spoke with acrimonious contempt. It may have 
been too that in this she did not quite succeed, for it is very 
difficult to resist confidence, and she knew she had Georgiana's. 

Nothing more was said between the happy pair. Perhaps con- 
spirators, who have once established an understanding, may not be 
over fond of repeating the terms and objects of their conspiracy. 
Next day came ; came Georgiana ; and came Fledgeby. 

Georgiana had by this time seen a good deal of the house and 
its frequenters. As there was a certain handsome room with a 
bilHard table in it — on the ground floor, eating out a backyard — 
which might have been Mr. Lammle's office, or library, but was 
called by neither name, but simply Mr. Lammle's room, so it would 
have been hard for stronger female heads than Georgiana's to deter- 
mine whether its frequenters were men of pleasure or men of 
business. Between the room and the men there were strong 
points of general resemblance. Both were too gaudy, too slangy, 
too odorous of cigars, and too much given to horseflesh ; the latter 
characteristic being exemplified in the room by its decorations, and 
in the men by their conversation. High-stepping horses seemed 
necessary to all Mr. Lammle's friends — as necessary as their trans- 
action of business together in a gipsy way at untimely hours of the 
morning and evening, and in rushes and snatches. There were 
friends who seemed to be always coming and going across the 
Channel, on errands about the Bourse, and Greek and Spanish and 
India and Mexican and par and premium and discount and three 
quarters and seven eighths. There were other friends who seemed 
to be always lolling and lounging in and out of the City, on ques- 



248 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

tions of the Bourse, and Greek and Spanish and India and Mexi- 
can and par and ijremium and discount and three quarters and 
seven eighths. They were all feverish, boastful, and indefinably 
loose ; and they all ate and drank a great deal ; and made bets in 
eating and drinking. They all spoke of sums of money, and only 
mentioned the sums and left the money to be understood ; " as 
five and forty thousand Tom," or " Two hundred and twenty-two 
on every individual share in the lot Joe." They seemed to divide 
the world into two classes of people; people who were making 
enormous fortunes, and people who were being enormously ruined. 
They were always in a hurry, and yet seemed to have nothing 
tangible to do ; except a few of them (these, mostly asthmatic 
and thick-lipped) who were for ever demonstrating to the rest, 
with gold pencil-cases which they could hardly hold because of the 
big rings on their forefingers, how money was to be made. Lastly, 
they all swore at their grooms, and the grooms were not quite as 
respectful or complete as other men's grooms ; seeming somehow 
to fiill short of the groom point as their masters fell short of the 
gentleman point. 

Young Fledgeby was none of these. Young Fledgeby had a 
peachy cheek, or a cheek compounded of the peach and the red red 
red wall on which it grows, and was an awkward, sandy-haired, small- 
eyed youth, exceeding slim (his enemies would have said lanky), and 
prone to self-examination in the articles of whisker and moustache. 
While feeling for the whisker that he anxiously expected, Fledgeby 
underwent remarkable fluctuations of spirits, ranging along the 
whole scale from confidence to despair. There Avere times when he 
started, as exclaiming, " By Jupiter, here it is at last ! " There were 
other times when, being equally depressed, he would be seen to shake 
his head, and give up hope. To see him at those periods leaning on 
a chimneypiece, like as on an urn containing the ashes of his ambition, 
with the cheek that would not sprout, upon the hand on which that 
cheek had forced conviction, was a distressing sight. 

Not so was Fledgeby seen on this occasion. Arrayed in superb 
raiment, with his opera hat under his arm, he concluded his self- 
examination hopefully, awaited the arrival of Miss Podsnap, and 
talked small-talk with Mrs. Lammle. In facetious homage to the 
smallness of his talk, and the jerky nature of his manners, Fledgeby's 
familiars had agreed to confer upon him (behind his back) the 
honorary title of Fascination Fledgeby. 

"Warm weather, Mrs. Lammle," said Fascination Fledgeby. 
Mrs. Lammle thought it scarcely as warm as it had been 
yesterday. "Perhaps not," said Fascination Fledgeby, with 
great quickness of repartee ; " but I expect it will be devilish 
warm to-morrow." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 249 

He threw off another little scintillation. " Been out to-day, Mrs. 
Lammle?" 

Mrs. Lammle answered, for a short drive. 

"Some people," said Fascination Fledgeby, "are accustomed to 
take long drives ; but it generally appears to me that if they make 
'em too long, they overdo it." 

Being in such feather, he might have surpassed himself in his next 
sally, had not Miss Podsnap been announced. Mrs. Lammle flew 
to embrace her darling little Georgy, and when the first transports 
were over, presented Mr. Fledgeby. Mr. Lammle came on the 
scene last, for he was always late, and so were the frequenters 
always late ; all hands being bound to be made late, by private 
information about the Bourse, and Greek and Spanish and India 
and Mexican and par and premium and discount and three quarters 
and seven eighths. 

A handsome little dinner was served immediately, and Mr. 
Lammle sat sparkling at his end of the table, with his servant 
behind his chair, and his ever-lingering doubts upon the subject of 
his wages behind himself. Mr. Lammle's utmost powers of spark- 
ling were in requisition to-day, for Fascination Fledgeby and 
Georgiana not only struck each other speechless, but struck each 
other into astonishing attitudes ; Georgiana, as she sat facing 
Fledgeby, making such efforts to conceal her elbows as were totally 
incompatible with the use of a knife and fork ; and Fledgeby, as he 
sat fticing Georgiana, avoiding her countenance by every possible 
device, and betraying the discomposure of his mind in feeling for 
his whiskers with his spoon, his wine glass, and his bread. 

So, Mr, and Mrs. Alfred Laramie had to prompt, and this is how 
they prompted. 

"Georgiana," said Mr. Lammle, low and smiling, and sparkling 
all over, like a harlequin ; " you are not in your usual spirits. 
Why are you not in your usual spirits, Georgiana?" 

Georgiana faltered that she was much the same as she was in 
general ; she was not aware of being different. 

" Not aware of being different ! " retorted Mr. Alfred Lammle. 
" You, my dear Georgiana ! who are always so natural and uncon- 
strained with us ! who are such a relief from the crowd that are 
all alike ! who are the embodiment of gentleness, simplicitv, and 
reality ! " 

Miss Podsnap looked at the door, as if she entertained confused 
thoughts of taking refuge from these compliments in flight. 

"Now, I will be judged," said Mr. Lammle, raising his voice a 
little, "by my friend Fledgeby." 

" Oh don't ! " Miss Podsnap faintly ejaculated : when Mrs. 
Lammle took the prompt-book. 



250 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" I beg your pardon, Alfred, my dear, but I cannot part with 
Mr. Fledgeby quite yet ; you must wait for him a moment. Mr. 
Fledgeby and I are engaged in a personal discussion." 

Fledgeby must have conducted it on his side with immense art, 
for no appearance of uttering one syllable had escaped him. 

" A personal discussion, Sophronia, my love ? What discussion ? 
Fledgeby, I am jealous. What discussion, Fledgeby ? " 

" Shall I tell him, Mr. Fledgeby ? " asked Mrs. Lammle. 

Trying to look as if he knew anything about it. Fascination replied, 
"Yes, tell him." 

"We were discussing then," said Mrs. Lammle, "if you must 
know, Alfred, whether Mr. Fledgeby was in his usual flow of 
spirits." 

" Why, that is the very point, Sophronia, that Georgiana and 
I were discussing as to herself ! What did Fledgeby say 1 " 

" Oh, a likely thing, sir, that I am going to tell you everything, 
and be told nothing ! What did Georgiana say ? " 

" Georgiana said she was doing her usual justice to herself to-day, 
and I said she was not." 

" Precisely," exclaimed Mrs. Lammle, " what I said to Mr. 
Fledgeby." 

Still, it wouldn't do. They would not look at one another. 
No, not even when the sparkling host proposed that the quartette 
should take an appropriately sparkling glass of wine. Georgiana 
looked from her wine glass at Mr. Lammle and at Mrs. Lammle ; 
but mightn't, couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't, look at Mr. Fledgeby. 
Fascination looked from his wine glass at Mrs. Lammle and at 
Mr. Lammle; but mightn't, couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't, look at 
Georgiana. 

More prompting was necessary. Cupid must be brought up to 
the mark. The manager had put him down in the bill for the part, 
and he must play it. 

" Sophronia, my dear," said Mr. Lammle, " I don't like the colour 
of your dress." 

"I appeal," said Mrs. Lammle, "to Mr. Fledgeby." 

"And I," said Mr. Lammle, "to Georgiana." 

" Georgy, my love," remarked Mrs. Lammle aside to her dear girl, 
"I rely upon you not to go over to the opposition. Now, Mr. 
Fledgeby." 

Fascination wished to know if the colour were not called 
rose-colour 1 Yes, said Mr. Lammle ; actually he knew every- 
thing; it was really rose-colour. Fascination took rose-colour to 
mean the colour of roses. (In this he was very warmly supported 
by Mr. and Mrs. Lammle.) Fascination had heard the term 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 251 

Queen of Flowers applied to the Eose. Similarly, it might be 
said that the dress was the Queen of Dresses. ("Very happy, 
Fledgeby ! " from Mr. Lammle.) Notwithstanding, Fascination's 
opinion was that we all had our eyes - — • or at least a large majority 
of us — and that — and — and his further opinion was several 
ands, with nothing beyond them. 

" Oh, Mr. Fledgeby," said Mrs. Lammle, "to desert me in that 
way ! Oh ! Mr. Fledgeby, to abandon my poor dear injured rose 
and declare for blue ! " 

" Victory, victory ! " cried Mr. Lammle ; " your dress is con- 
demned, my dear." 

"But what," said Mrs. Lammle, stealing her affectionate hand 
towards her dear girl's, "what does Georgy say?" 

" She says," replied Mr. Lammle, interpreting for her, " that in 
her eyes you look well in any colour, Sophronia, and that if she had 
expected to be embarrassed by so pretty a compliment as she has 
received, she would have worn another colour herself. Though I 
tell her, in reply, that it w^ould not have saved her, for, whatever 
colour she had worn would have been Fledgeby's colour. But 
what does Fledgeby say 1 " 

"He says," replied Mrs. Lammle, interpreting for him, and pat- 
ting the back of her dear girl's hand, as if it were Fledgeby who 
was patting it, " that it was no compliment, but a little natural 
act of homage that he couldn't resist. And," expressing more feel- 
ing as if it were more feeling on the part of Fledgeby, " he is right, 
he is right ! " 

Still, no not even now, would they look at one another. Seem- 
ing to gnash his sparkling teeth, studs, eyes, and buttons, all at 
once, Mr. Lammle secretly bent a dark frown on the two, expres- 
sive of an intense desire to bring them together by knocking their 
heads together. 

" Have you heard this opera of to-night, Fledgeby ? " he asked, 
stopping very short, to prevent himself from running on into " con- 
found you." 

"Why no, not exactly," said Fledgeby. " In fact I don't know 
a note of it." 

" Neither do you know it, Georgy?" said Mrs. Lammle. 

" N-no," replied Georgiana, faintly, under the sympathetic coin- 
cidence. 

" Why, then," said Mrs. Lammle, charmed by the discovery which 
flowed from the premises, "you neither of you know it! How 
charming ! " 

Even the craven Fledgeby felt that the time was now come when 
he must strike a blow. He struck it by saying, partly to Mrs. 



252 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Lammle and partly to the circumambient air, " I consider myself 
very fortunate in being reserved by " 

As he stojDped dead, Mr. Lammle, making that gingerous bush 
of his whiskers to look out of, offered him the word "Destiny." 

" No, I wasn't going to say that," said Fledgeby. " I was going 
to say Fate. I consider it very fortunate that Fate has written in 
the book of — in the book which is its own property- — -that I 
should go to that opera for the first time under the memorable 
circumstances of going with Miss Podsnap." 

To which Georgiana replied, hooking her two little fingers in 
one another, and addressing the tablecloth, "Thank you, but I 
generally go with no one but you, Sophronia, and I like that very 
much." 

Content perforce with this success for the time, Mr. Lammle let 
Miss Podsnap out of the room, as if he were opening her cage door, 
and Mrs. Lammle followed. Coftee being presently served up-stairs, 
he kept a watch on Fledgeby until Miss Podsnap's cup was empty, 
and then directed him with his finger (as if that young gentleman 
were a slow Retriever) to go and fetch it. This feat he performed, 
not only without failure, but even with the original embellishment 
of informing Miss Podsnap that green tea was considered bad for 
the nerves. Though there Miss Podsnap unintentionally threw 
him out by faltering, "Oh, is it indeed? How does it act?" 
Which he was not prepared to elucidate. 

The carriage announced, Mrs. Lammle said, " Don't mind me, 
Mr. Fledgeby, my skirts and cloak occupy both my hands ; take 
Miss Podsnap." And he took her, and Mrs. Lammle went next, 
and Mr. Lammle went last, savagely following his little flock, like 
a drover. 

But he was all sparkle and glitter in the box at the Opera, and 
there he and his dear wife made a conversation between Fledgeby 
and Georgiana in the following ingenious and skilful manner. 
They sat in this order: Mrs. Lammle, Fascination Fledgeby, 
Georgiana, Mr. Lammle. Mrs. Lammle made leading remarks 
to Fledgeby, only requiring monosyllabic replies. Mr. Lammle 
did the like with Georgiana. At times Mrs. Lammle would lean 
forward to address Mr. Lammle to this purpose. 

"Alfred, my dear, Mr. Fledgeby very justly says, Apropos of the 
last scene, that true constancy would not require any such stimu- 
lant as the stage deems necessary." To which Mr. Lammle would 
reply, " Ay, Sophronia, my love, but as Georgiana has observed to 
me, the lady had no sufficient reason to know the state of the gen- 
tleman's aff'ection." To which Mrs. Lamnrle would rejoin, " Very 
true, Alfred ; but INIr. Fledgeby points out," this. To which Alfred 



OUR MUTUAL FRIENr). 253 

would demur : " Undoubtedly, Sophronia, but Georgiana acutely 
remarks," that. Through this device the two young people con- 
versed at great length and committed themselves to a variety of 
delicate sentiments, without having once opened their lips, save to 
say yes or no, and even that not to one another. 

Fledgeby took his leave of Miss Podsnap at the carriage door, and 
the Lammles dropped her at her own home, and on the way Mrs. 
Lammle archly rallied her, in her fond and protecting manner, 
by saying at intervals, "Oh, little Georgiana, little Georgiana ! " 
Which was not much ; but the tone added, " You have enslaved 
your Fledgeby." 

And thus the Lammles got home at last, and the lady sat down 
moody and weary, looking at her dark lord engaged in a deed of 
violence with a bottle of soda-water, as though he were wringing 
the neck of some unlucky creature and pouring its blood down his 
throat. As he wiped his dripping whiskers in an ogreish way, he 
met her eyes, and pausing, said, with no very gentle voice : 

"Well?" 

" Was such an absolute Booby necessary to the purpose ? " 

" I know what I am doing. He is no such dolt as you suppose." 

" A genius, perhaps 1 " 

" You sneer, perhaps ; and you take a lofty air upon yourself, 
perhaps ! But I tell you this : — when that young fellow's inter- 
est is concerned, he holds as tight as a horse-leech. When money is 
in question with that young fellow, he is a match for the Devil." 

"Is he a match for you ? " 

" He is. Almost as good a one as you thought me for you. 
He has no quality of youth in him, but such as you have seen to- 
day. Touch him upon money, and you touch no booby then. He 
really is a dolt, I suppose, in other things ; but it answers his one 
purpose very well." 

"Has she money in her own right in any case?" 

" Ay ! she has money in her own right in any case. You have 
done so well to-day, Sophronia, that I answer the question, though 
you know I object to any such questions. You have done so well 
to-day, Sophronia, that you must be tired. Get to bed." 



254 • OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

CHAPTER V. 

MERCUKY PROMPTING. 

Fledgeby deserved Mr. Alfred Lammle's eulogium. He was 
the meanest cur existing, with a single pair of legs. And instinct 
(a word we all clearly understand) going largely on four legs, and 
reason always on two, meanness on four legs never attains the 
perfection of meanness on two. 

The father of this young gentleman had been a money-lender, 
who had transacted professional business with the mother of this 
young gentleman, when he, the latter, was waiting in the vast 
dark ante-chambers of the present world to be born. The lady, a 
widow, being unable to pay the money-lender, married him ; and 
in due course, Fledgeby was summoned out of the vast dark ante- 
chambers to come and be presented to the Registrar-General. 
Rather a curious speculation how Fledgeby would otherwise have 
disposed of his leisure until Doomsday. 

Fledgeby's mother offended her family by marrying Fledgeby's 
father. It is one of the easiest achievements in life to offend 
your family when your family want to get rid of you. Fledgeby's 
mother's family had been very much offended with her for being 
poor, and broke with her for becoming comparatively rich. Fledge- 
by's mother's family was the Snigsworth family. She had even 
the high honour to be cousin to Lord Snigsworth — so many times 
removed that the noble Earl would have had no compunction in 
removing her one time more and dropping her clean outside the 
cousinly pale ; but cousin for all that. 

Among her pre-matrimonial transactions with Fledgeby's father 
Fledgeby's mother had raised money of him at a great disadvantage 
on a certain reversionary interest. The reversion falling in soon after 
they were married, Fledgeby's father laid hold of the cash for his 
separate use and benefit. This led to subjective differences of 
opinion, not to say objective interchanges of boot-jacks, backgam- 
mon boards, and other such domestic missiles, between Fledgeby's 
father and Fledgeby's mother, and those led to Fledgeby's mother 
spending as much money as she could, and to Fledgeby's father 
doing all he couldn't to restrain her. Fledgeby's childhood had 
been, in consequence, a stormy one ; but the winds and the 
waves had gone down in the grave, and Fledgeby flourished 
alone. 

He lived in chambers in the Albany, did Fledgeby, and main- 
tained a spruce appearance. But his youthful fire was all com- 
posed of sparks from the grindstone ; and as the sparks flew 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 255 

off, went out, and never warmed anything, be sure that Fledgeby 
had his tools at the grindstone, and turned it with a wary eye. 

Mr. Alfred Lammle came round to the Albany to breakfast 
with Fledgeby. Present on the table, one scanty pot of tea, one 
scanty loaf, two scanty pats of butter, two scanty rashers of 
bacon, two pitiful eggs, and an abundance of handsome china 
bought a second-hand bargain, 

" What do you think of Georgiana V asked Mr. Lammle. 

"Why, I'll tell you," said Fledgeby, very deliberately. 

"Do, my boy." 

" You misunderstand me," said Fledgeby. "I don't mean I'll 
tell you that. I mean I'll tell you something else." 

" Tell me anything, old fellow ! " 

"Ah, but there you misunderstand me again," said Fledgeby. 
"I mean I'll tell you nothing." 

Mr. Lammle sparkled at him, but frowned at him too. 

"Look here," said Fledgeby. "You're deep and you're ready. 
Whether I am deep or not, never mind. I am not ready. But 
I can do one thing, Lammle, I can hold my tongue. And I 
intend always doing it." 

" You are a long-headed fellow, Fledgeby." 

" May be, or may not be. If I am a short-tongued fellow, it 
may amount to the same thing. Now, Lammle, I am never 
going to answer questions." 

"My dear fellow, it was the simplest question in the world." 

" ISTever mind. It seemed so, but things are not always what 
they seem. I saw a man examined as a witness in Westminster 
Hall. Questions put to him seemed the simplest in the world, 
but turned out to be anything rather than that, after he had 
answered 'em. Very well. Then he should have held his tongue. 
If he had held his tongue he would have kept out of scrapes that 
he got into." 

" If I had held my tongue, you would never have seen the 
subject of my question," remarked Lammle, darkening. 

"Now, Lammle," said Fascination Fledgeby, calmly feeling for 
his whisker, " it won't do. I won't be led on into a discussion. 
I can't manage a discussion. But I can manage to hold my 
tongue." 

"Can?" Mr. Lammle fell back upon propitiation. "I should 
think you could ! Why, when these fellows of our acquaintance 
drink and you drink with them, the more talkative they get, 
the more silent you get. The more they let out, the more you 
keep in." 

" I don't object, Lammle," returned Fledgeby, with an internal 



266 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

chuckle, "to being understood, though I object to being ques- 
tioned. That certainly is the way I do it." 

"And when all the rest of us are discussing our ventures, none 
of us ever know what a single venture of yours is ! " 

" And none of you ever will from me, Lammle," replied Fledgeby, 
with another internal chuckle; "that certainly is the way I doit." 

" Why, of course it is, I know ! " rejoined Lammle, with a 
flourish of frankness, and a laugh, and stretching out his hands as 
if to show the universe a remarkable man in Fledgeby. " If I 
hadn't known it of my Fledgeby, should I have proposed our 
little compact of advantage, to my Fledgeby 1 " 

" Ah," remarked Fascination, shaking his head slyly. " But 
I am not to be got at in that way. I am not vain. That sort 
of vanity don't pay, Lammle. No, no, no. Compliments only 
make me hold my tongue the more." 

Alfred Lammle pushed his plate away (no great sacrifice, under 
the circumstances of there being so little in it), thrust his hands 
in his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and contemplated Fledgeby 
in silence. Then he slowly released his left hand from its 
pocket, and made that bush of his whiskers, still contemplating 
him in silence. Then he slowly broke silence, and slowly said : 
" What — the — Dev-il is this fellow about this morning 1 " 

"Now, look here, Lammle," said Fascination Fledgeby, with 
the meanest of twinkles in his meanest of eyes, which were too 
near together, by the way : " look here, Lammle ; I am very well 
aware that I didn't show to advantage last night, and that you 
and your wife — who I consider is a very clever woman and an 
agreeable woman — did. I am not calculated to show to advan- 
tage under that sort of circumstances. I know very well you 
two did show to advantage, and managed capitally. But don't 
you on that account come talking to me .as if I was your doll and 
puppet, because I am not." 

"And all this," cried Alfred, after studying with a look the 
meanness that was fain to have the meanest help, and yet was 
so mean as to turn upon it: "all this because of one simple 
natural question ! " 

"You should have waited till I thought proper to say some- 
thing about it of myself. I don't like your coming over me with 
your Georgianas, as if you was her proprietor and mine too." 

" Well, when you are in the gracious mind to say anything about 
it yourself," retorted Lammle, "pray do." 

"I have done it. I have said you managed capitally. You 
and your wife both. If you'll go on managing capitally, I'll go on 
doing my part. Only don't crow." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 257 

" I crow ! " exclaimed Lammle, shrugging his shoulders. 
"Or," pursued the other — "or take it in your head that people 
are your puppets because they don't come out to advantage at the 
particular moments when you do, with the assistance of a very 
clever and agreeable wife. All the rest keep on doing, and let 
Mrs. Lammle keep on doing. Now, I have held my tongue when 
I thought proper, and I have spoken when I thought proper, 
and there's an end of that. And now the question is," proceeded 
Fledgeby, with the greatest reluctance, "will you have another 
eggV' 

"No, I won't," said Lammle shortly. 

"Perhaps you're right and will find yourself better without it," 
replied Fascination, in greatly improved spirits. "To ask you if 
you'll have another rasher would be unmeaning flattery, for it would 
make you thirsty all day. Will you have some more bread and 
butter?" 

"No, I won't," repeated Lammle. 

" Then I will," said Fascination. And it was not a mere retort 
for the sound's sake, but was a cheerful cogent consequence of the 
refusal ; for if Lammle had applied himself again to the loaf, it 
would have been so heavily visited, in Fledgeby's opinion, as to 
demand abstinence from bread, on his part, for the remainder of 
that meal at least, if not for the whole of the next. 

Whether this young gentleman (for he was but three-and-twenty) 
combined with the miserly vice of an old man, any of the open- 
handed vices of a young one, was a moot point ; so very honour- 
ably did he keep his own counsel. He was sensible of the value 
of appearances as an investment, and liked to dress well ; but he 
drove a bargain for every movable about him, from the coat on 
his back to the china on his breakfast-table ; and every bargain, by 
representing somebody's ruin or somebody's loss, acquired a peculiar 
charm for him. It was a part of his avarice to take, within narrow 
bounds, long odds at races ; if he won, he drove harder bargains ; if 
he lost, he half starved himself until next time. Why money should 
be so precious to an Ass too dull and mean to exchange it for any other 
satisfaction, is strange ; but there is no animal so sure to get laden 
with it, as the Ass who sees nothing written on the face of the 
earth and sky but the three letters L. S. D. — not Luxury, Sen- 
suality, Dissoluteness, which they often stand for, but the three 
dry letters. Your concentrated Fox is seldom comparable to your 
concentrated Ass in money-breeding. 

Fascination Fledgeby feigned to be a young gentleman living on 
his means, but was known secretly to be a kind of outlaw in the 
bill-broking line, and to put money out at high interest in various 



258 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

ways. His circle of familiar acquaintance, from Mr. Lammle round, 
all had a touch of the outlaw, as to their rovings in the merry- 
greenwood of Jobbery Forest, lying on the outskirts of the Share- 
Market and the Stock Exchange. 

" I suppose you, Lammle," said Fledgeby, eating his bread and 
butter, "always did go in for female society?" 

" Always," replied Lammle, glooming considerably under his late 
treatment. 

" Came natural to you, eh ? " said Fledgeby. 

"The sex were pleased to like me, sir," said Lammle sulkily, 
but with the air of a man who had not been able to help himself. 

" Made a pretty good thing of marrying, didn't you ? " asked 
Fledgeby. 

The other smiled (an ugly smile), and tapped one tap upon his 
nose. 

"My late governor made a mess of it," said Fledgeby. "But 
Geor is the right name Georgina or Georgiana 1 " 

" Georgiana." 

"I was thinking yesterday, I didn't know there was such a 
name. I thought it must end in ina." 

"Why?" 

"Why, you play — if you can — the Concertina, you know," 
replied Fledgeby, meditating very slowly. "And you have — 
when you catch it — the Scarlatina. And you can come down 

from a balloon in a parach no you can't though. Well, say 

Georgeute — I mean Georgiana." 

" You were going to remark of Georgiana ? " Lammle mood- 
ily hinted, after waiting in vain. 

" I was going to remark of Georgiana, sir," said Fledgeby, not 
at all pleased to be reminded of his having forgotten it, " that she 
don't seem to be violent. Don't seem to be of the pitching-in order." 

" She has the gentleness of the dove, Mr. Fledgeby." 

" Of course, you'll say so," replied Fledgeby, sharpening, the 
moment his interest was touched by another. "But you know 
the real look-out is this : — what I say, not what you say. I say 
— having my late governor and my late mother in my eye — that 
Georgiana don't seem to be of the pitching-in order." 

The respected Mr. Lammle was a bully, by nature and by usual 
practice. Perceiving, as Fledgeby's affronts cumulated, that con- 
ciliation by no means answered the purpose here, he now directed 
a scowling look into Fledgeby's small eyes for the effect of the 
opposite treatment. Satisfied by what he saw there, he burst into 
a violent passion and struck his hand upon the table, making the 
cliina ring and dance. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 259 

"You are a very offensive fellow, sir," cried Mr. Lammle, rising. 
"You are a highly offensive scoundrel. What do you mean by 
this behaviour ? " 

"I say," remonstrated Fledgeby. "Don't break out." 

"You are a very offensive fellow, sir," repeated Mr. Lammle. 
"You are a highly offensive scoundrel ! " 

" I say, you know ! " urged Fledgeby, quailing. 

" Why, you coarse and vulgar vagabond ! " said Mr. Lammle, 
looking fiercely about him, "if your servant was here to give me 
sixpence of your money to get my boots cleaned afterwards — for 
you are not worth the expenditure — I'd kick you." 

" No, you wouldn't," pleaded Fledgeby. " I am sure you'd think 
better of it." 

"I tell you what, Mr. Fledgeby," said Lammle, advancing on 
him. " Since you presume to contradict me, I'll assert myself a 
little. Give me your nose ! " 

Fledgeby covered it with his hand instead, and said, retreating, 
" I beg you won't ! " 

"Give me your nose, sir," repeated Lammle. 

Still covering that feature and backing, Mr. Fledgeby reiterated 
(apparently with a severe cold in his head), "I beg, I beg, you 
won't." 

"And this fellow," exclaimed Lammle, stopping and making the 
most of his chest — "this fellow presumes on my having selected 
him out of all the young fellows I know, for an advantageous 
opportunity ! This fellow presumes on my having in my desk 
round the corner, his dirty note of hand for a wretched sum pay- 
able on the occurrence of a certain event, which event can only be 
of my and my wife's bringing about ! This fellow, Fledgeby, pre- 
sumes to be impertinent to me, Lammle. Give me your nose, sir ! " 

" No ! Stop ! I beg your pardon," said Fledgeby, with humih 
ity. 

" What do you say, sir % " demanded Mr. Lammle, seeming too 
furious to understand. 

"I beg your pardon," repeated Fledgeby. 

"Repeat your words louder, sir. The just indignation of a 
gentleman has sent the blood boiling to my head. I don't hear 
you." 

" I say," repeated Fledgeby, with laborious explanatory polite- 
ness, "I beg your pardon." 

Mr. Lammle paused. "As a man of honour," said he, throw- 
ing himself into a chair, "I am disarmed." 

Mr. Fledgeby also took a chair, though less demonstratively, 
and by slow approaches removed his hand from his nose. Some 



260 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

natural diffidence assailed him as to blowing it, so shortly after its 
having assumed a personal and delicate, not to say public, character ; 
but he overcame his scruples by degrees, and modestly took that 
liberty under an implied protest. 

"Lammle," he said sneakingly, when that was done, "I hoi3e 
we are friends again ? " 

"Mr, Fledgeby," returned Lammle, " say no more." 

" I must have gone too far in making myself disagreeable," said 
Fledgeby, "but I never intended it." 

" Say no more, say no more ! " Mr. Lammle repeated in a mag- 
nificent tone. " Give me your " — Fledgeby started — " hand." 

They shook hands, and on Mr. Lammle's part, in particular, 
there ensued great geniality. For, he was quite as much of a 
dastard as the other, and had been in equal danger of falling into 
the second place for good, when he took heart just in time, to act 
upon the information conveyed to him by Fledgeby's eye. 

The breakfast ended in a perfect understanding. Incessant 
machinations were to be kept at work by Mr. and Mrs. Lammle ; 
love was to be made for Fledgeby, and conquest was to be insured 
to him ; he on his part very humbly admitting his defects as to 
the softer social arts, -and entreating to be backed to the utmost 
by his two able coadjutors. 

Little recked Mr. Podsnap of the traps and toils besetting his 
Young Person. He regarded her as safe within the Temple of 
Podsnappery, biding the fulness of time when she, Georgiana, 
should take him, Fitz-Podsnap, who with all his worldly goods should 
her endow. It would call a blush into the cheek of his standard 
Young Person to have anything to do with such matters save to 
take as directed, and with worldly goods as per settlement to be 
endowed. Who giveth this woman to be married to this man? 
I, Podsnap. Perish the daring thought that any smaller creation 
should come between ! 

It was a public holiday, and Fledgeby did not recover his spirits 
or his usual temperature of nose until the afternoon. Walking 
into the City in the holiday afternoon, he walked against a living 
stream setting out of it ; and thus, when he turned into the pre- 
cincts of St. Mary Axe, he found a prevalent repose and quiet there. 
A yellow overhanging plaster-fronted house at which he stopped 
was quiet too. The blinds were all drawn down, and the inscrip- 
tion Pubsey and Co. seemed to doze in the counting-house window 
on the ground-floor giving on the sleepy street. 

Fledgeby knocked and rang, and Fledgeby rang and knocked, but 
no one came. Fledgeby crossed the narrow street and looked up 
at the house-windows, but nobody looked down at Fledgeby. He 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 261 

got out of temper, crossed the narrow street again, and pulled the 
house-bell as if it were the house's nose, and he were taking a hint 
from his late experience. His ear at the keyhole seemed then, at 
last, to give him assurance that something stirred within. His 
eye at the keyhole seemed to confirm his ear, for he angrily pulled 
the house's nose again, and pulled and pulled and continued to 
pull, until a human nose appeared in the dark doorway. 

" Now you, sir ! " cried Fledgeby. " These are nice games ! " 
He addressed an old Jewish man in an ancient coat, long of 
skirt, and wide of pocket. A venerable man, bald and shining at 
the top of his head, and with long grey hair flowing down at its 
sides and mingling with his beard. A man who with a graceful 
Eastern action of homage bent his head and stretched out his 
hands with the palms downward, as if to deprecate the wrath of a 
superior. 

" What have you been up to ? " said Fledgeby, storming at him. 
" Generous Christian master," urged the Jewish man, " it being 
holiday, I looked for no one." 

" Holiday be blowed ! " said Fledgeby, entering. " What have 
you got to do with holidays % Shut the door." 

^ With his former action the old man obeyed. In the entry hung 
his rusty large-brimmed low-crowned hat, as long out of date as 
his coat ; in the corner near it stood his staff — no walking-stick, 
but a veritable staff*. Fledgeby turned into the counting-house, 
perched himself on a business stool, and cocked his hat. There 
were light boxes on shelves in the counting-house, and strings of 
mock beads hanging up. There were samples of cheap clocks, and 
samples of cheap vases of flowers. Foreign toys, all. 

Perched on the stool with his hat cocked on his head and one of 
his legs dangling, the youth of Fledgeby hardly contrasted to 
advantage with the age of the Jewish man as he stood with his 
bare head bowed, and his eyes (which he only raised in speaking) 
on the ground. His clothing was worn down to the rusty hue of 
the hat in the entry, but though he looked shabby he did not 
look mean. Now, Fledgeby, though not shabby, did look mean. 

" You have not told me what you were up to, you sir," said 
Fledgeby, scratching his head with the brim of his hat. 
" Sir, I was breathing the air." 
" In the cellar, that you didn't hear?" 
"On the house-top." 

" Upon my soul ! That's a way of doing business." 
"Sir," the old man represented with a grave and patient air, 
" there must be two parties to the transaction of business, and the 
holiday has left me alone." 



262 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Ah ! Can't be buyer and seller too. That's what the Jews 
say ; ain't it ? " 

" At least we say truly, if we say so," answered the old man 
with a smile. 

" Your people need speak the truth sometimes, for they lie 
enough," remarked Fascination Fledgeby. 

"Sir, there is," returned the old man with quiet emphasis, "too 
much untruth among all denominations of men." 

Rather dashed. Fascination Fledgeby took another scratch at his 
intellectual head with his hat, to gain time for rallying. 

"For instance," he resumed, as though it were he who had 
spoken last, " who but you and I ever heard of a poor Jew 1 " 

" The Jews," said the old man, raising his eyes from the ground 
with his former smile. " They hear of poor Jews often, and are 
very good to them." 

" Bother that ! " returned Fledgeby. " You know what I mean. 
You'd persuade me, if you could, that you are a poor Jew. I wish 
you'd confess how much you really did make out of my late gover- 
nor. I should have a 'better opinion of you." 

The old man only bent his head, and stretched out his hands as 
before. 

"Don't go on posturing like a Deaf and Dumb School," said 
the ingenious Fledgeby, " but express yourself like a Christian — 
or as nearly as you can." 

" I had had sickness and misfortunes, and was so poor," said the 
old man, " as hopelessly to owe the father principal and interest. 
The son inheriting, was so merciful as to forgive me both, and 
place me here." 

He made a little gesture as though he kissed the hem of an 
imaginary garment worn by the noble youth before him. It 
was humbly done, but picturesquely, and was not abasing to the 
doer. 

"You won't say more, I see," said Fledgeby, looking at him 
as if he would like to try the effect of extracting a double-tooth 
or two, " and so it's of no use my putting it to you. But confess 
this, Riah ; who believes you to be poor now 1 " 

"No one," said the old man. 

"There you're right," assented Fledgeby. 

" No one," repeated the old man with a grave slow wave of his 
head. "All scout it as a fable. Were I to say, ' This little fancy 
business is not mine ; ' " with a lithe sweep of his easily-turning 
hand around him, to comprehend the various objects on the shelves ; 
" it is the little business of a Christian young gentleman who places 
me, his servant, in trust and charge here, and to whom I am account- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 263 

able for every single bead,' they would laugh. When, in the larger 
money-business, I tell the borrowers " 

" I say, old chap ! " interposed Fledgeby, " I hope you mind 
what you do tell 'em ? " 

" Sir, I tell them no more than I am about to repeat. When 
I tell them, ' I cannot promise this, I cannot answer for the other, 
I must see my principal, I have not the money, I am a poor man 
and it does not rest with me,' they are so unbelieving and so impa- 
tient, that they sometimes curse me in Jehovah's name." 

" That's deuced good, that is ! " said Fascination Fledgeby. 

" And at other times they say, ' Can it never be done without 
these tricks, Mr. Riah ? Come, come, Mr. Riah, we know the arts 
of your people ' — my people ! — 'If the money is to be lent, fetch 
it, fetch it ; if it is not to be lent, keep it and say so.' They never 
believe me." 

" Thafs all right," said Fascination Fledgeby. 

" They say, ' We know, Mr. Riah, we know. We have but to 
look at you, and we know.' " 

"Oh, a good 'un are you for the post," thought Fledgeby, "and 
a good 'un was I to mark you out for it ! I may be slow, but I 
am precious sure." 

Not a syllable of this reflection shaped itself in any scrap of 
Mr. Fledgeby's breath, lest it should tend to put his servant's price 
up. But looking at the old man as he stood quiet with his head 
bowed and his eyes cast down, he felt that to relinquish an inch of 
his baldness, an inch of his grey hair, an inch of his coat-skirt, an 
inch of his hat-brim, an inch of his walking-staff", would be to relin- 
quish hundreds of pounds. 

" Look here, Riah," said Fledgeby, mollified by these self-approv- 
ing considerations. " I want to go a little more into buying-up 
queer bills. Look out in that direction." 

" Sir, it shall be done." 

" Casting my eye over the accounts, I find that branch of busi- 
ness pays pretty fairly, and I am game for extending it. I like to 
know people's aff'airs likewise. So look out." 

"Sir, I will, promptly." 

" Put it about in the right quarters, that you'll buy queer bills 
by the lump — by the pound weight if that's all — supposing you 
see your way to a fair chance on looking over the parcel. And 
there's one thing more. Come to me with the books for periodical 
inspection as usual, at eight on Monday morning." 

Riah drew some folding tablets from his breast and noted it 
down. 

"That's all I wanted to say at the present time," continued 



264 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Fledgeby in a grudging vein, as he got off the stool, " except that 
I wish you'd take the air where you can hear the bell, or the 
knocker, either one of the two or both. By-the-bye, how do you 
take the air at the top of the house ? Do you stick your head out 
of a chimney-pot 1 " 

"Sir, there are leads there, and I have made a little garden 
there." 

" To bury your money in, you old dodger ? " 

" A thumbnail's space of garden would hold the treasure / bury, 
master," said Riah. " Twelve shillings a week, even when they 
are an old man's wages, bury themselves." 

"I should like to know what you really are worth," returned 
Fledgeby, with whom his growing rich on that stipend and grati- 
tude was a very convenient fiction. " But come ! Let's have a 
look at your garden on the tiles, before I go ! " 

The old man took a step back, and hesitated. 

" Truly, sir, I have company there." 

" Have you, by George ! " said Fledgeby. " I suppose you hap- 
pen to know whose premises these are ? " 

" Sir, they are yours, and I am your servant in them." 

" Oh ! I thought you might have overlooked that," retorted 
Fledgeby, with his eyes on Riah's beard as he felt for his own; 
" having company on my premises, you know ! " 

" Come up and see the guests, sir. I hope for your admission 
that they can do no harm." 

Passing him with a courteous reverence, specially unlike any 
action that Mr. Fledgeby could for his life have imparted to his 
own head and hands, the old man began to ascend the stairs. As 
he toiled on before, with his palm upon the stair-rail, and his long 
black skirt, a very gaberdine, overhanging each successive step, he 
might have been the leader in some pilgrimage of devotional ascent 
to a prophet's tomb. Not troubled by any such weak imagining. 
Fascination Fledgeby merely speculated on the time of life at which 
his beard had begun, and thought once more what a good 'un he 
was for the part. 

Some final wooden steps conducted them, stooping under a low 
pent-house roof, to the house-top. Riah stood still, and, turning 
to his master, pointed out his guests. 

Lizzie Hexam and Jenny Wren. For whom, perhaps with some 
old instinct of his race, the gentle Jew had spread a carpet. Seated 
on it, against no more romantic object than a blackened chimney- 
stack over which some humble creeper had been trained, they both 
pored over one book ; both with attentive faces ; Jenny Avith the 
sharper ; Lizzie with the more perplexed. Another little book or 




THE GARDEN ON THE ROOF. 



266 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

two were lying near, and a common basket of common fruit, and 
another basket full of strings of beads and tinsel scraps. A few 
boxes of humble flowers and evergreens completed the garden ; and 
the encompassing wilderness of dowager old chimneys twirled their 
cowls and fluttered their smoke, rather as if they were bridling and 
fanning themselves, and looking on in a state of airy surprise. 

Taking her eyes off* the book, to test her memory of something 
in it, Lizzie was the first to see herself observed. As she rose, 
Miss Wren likewise became conscious, and said, irreverently address- 
ing the great chief of the premises : " Whoever you are, / can't get 
up, because my back's bad and my legs are queer." 

"This is my master," said Eiah, stepping forward. 

("Don't look like anybody's master," observed Miss Wren to 
herself, with a hitch of her chin and eyes.) 

"This, sir," pursued the old man, "is a little dressmaker for 
little people. Explain to the master, Jenny." 

"Dolls; that's all," said Jenny, shortly. "Very difficult to fit 
too, because their figures are so uncertain. You never know where 
to expect their waists." 

"Her friend," resumed the old man, motioning towards Lizzie; 
"and as industrious as virtuous. But that they both are. They 
are busy early and late, sir, early and late ; and in bye-times, as 
on this holiday, they go to book-learning." 

" Not much good to be got out of that," remarked Fledgeby." 

" Depends upon the person ! " quoth Miss Wren, snapping him 
up. 

" I made acquaintance with my guests, sir," pursued the Jew, 
with an evident purpose of drawing out the dressmaker, " through 
their coming here to buy of our damage and waste for Miss 
Jenny's millinery. Our waste goes into the best of company, 
sir, on her rosy-cheeked little customers. They wear it in their 
hair, and on their ball-dresses, and even (so she tells me) are 
presented at Court with it." 

" Ah ! " said Fledgeby, on whose intelligence this doll-fancy 
made rather strong demands ; " she's been buying that basketful 
to-day, I suppose ? " 

"I suppose she has," Miss Jenny interposed; "and paying 
for it too, most likely ! " 

"Let's have a look at it," said the suspicious chief. Riah 
handed it to him. " How much for this now? " 

" Two precious silver shillings," said Miss Wren. 

Riah confirmed her with two nods, as Fledgeby looked to him. 
A nod for each shilling. 

" Well," said Fledgeby, poking into the contents of the basket 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 267 

with his forefinger, " the price is not so bad. You have got 
good measure, Miss What-is-it ? " 

" Try Jenny," suggested that young lady with great calmness. 

" You have got good measure, Miss Jenny ; but the price is 
not so bad. — And you," said Fledgeby, turning to the other 
visitor, "do you buy anything here, miss?" 

" No, sir." 

" Nor sell anything neither, miss?" 

" No, sir." 

Looking askew at the questioner, Jenny stole her hand up to 
her friend's, and drew her friend down, so that she bent beside 
her on her knee. 

" We are thankful to come here for rest, sir," said Jenny. " You 
see, you don't know what the rest of this place is to us ; does he, 
Lizzie 1 It's the quiet, and the air." 

" The quiet ! " repeated Fledgeby, with a contemptuous turn of 
his head towards the City's roar. "And the air!" with a 
" Poof ! " at the smoke. 

" Ah ! " said Jenny. " But it's so high. And you see the 
clouds rushing on above the narrow streets, not minding them, 
and you see the golden arrows pointing at the mountains in the 
sky from which the wind comes, and you feel as if you were 
dead." 

The little creature looked above her, holding up her slight 
transparent hand. 

" How do you feel when you are dead 1 " asked Fledgeby, much 
perplexed. 

" Oh, so tranquil ! " cried the little creature, smiling. " Oh, 
so peaceful and so thankful ! And you hear the people who are 
alive, crying, and working, and calling to one another down in 
the close dark streets, and you seem to pity them so ! And such 
a chain has fallen from you, and such a strange good sorrowful 
happiness comes upon you ! " 

Her eyes fell on the old man, who, with his hands folded, 
quietly looked on. 

"Why it was only just now," said the little creature, pointing 
at him, " that I fancied I saw him come out of his grave ! He 
toiled out at that low door so bent and worn, and then he took 
his breath and stood upright, and looked all round him at the 
sky, and the wind blew upon him, and his life down in the dark 
was over ! — Till he was called back to life," she added, looking 
round at Fledgeby with that lower look of sharpness. "Why 
did you call him back ? " 

" He was long enough coming, anyhow," grumbled Fledgeby. 



268 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" But yoii are not dead, you know," said Jenny Wren. " Get 
down to life ! " 

Mr, Fledgeby seemed to think it rather a good suggestion, and 
with a nod turned round. As Riah followed to attend him down 
the stairs, the little creature called out to the Jew in a silvery tone, 
" Don't be long gone. Come back, and be dead ! " And still 
as they went down they heard the little sweet voice, more and 
more faintly, half calling and half singing, " Come back and be 
dead. Come back and be dead ! " 

When they got down into the entry, Fledgeby, pausing under 
the shadow of the broad old hat, and mechanically poising the 
staff, said to the old man : 

" That's a handsome girl, that one in her senses." 

" And as good as handsome," answered Riah. 

"At all events," observed Fledgeby, with a dry whistle, "I 
hope she ain't bad enough to put any chap up to the fastenings, 
and get the premises broken open. You look out. Keep your 
weather eye awake, and don't make any more acquaintances, 
however handsome. Of course you always keep my name to your- 
self?" 

" Sir, assuredly I do." 

"If they ask it, say it's Pubsey, or say it's Co, or say it's 
anything you like, but what it is." 

His grateful servant — in whose race gratitude is deep, strong, 
and enduring — bowed his head, and actually did now put the 
hem of his coat to his lips : though so lightly that the wearer 
knew nothing of it. 

Thus, Fascination Fledgeby went his way, exulting in the 
artful cleverness with which he had turned his thumb down on a 
Jew, and the old man went his different way up-stairs. As he 
mounted, the call or song began to sound in his ears again, and, 
looking above, he saw the face of the little creature looking 
down out of a Glory of her long bright radiant hair, and musically 
repeating to him, like a vision : " Come up and be dead ! Come 
up and be dead ! " 



CHAPTER VI. 

A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER. 

Again Mr. Mortimer Lightwood and Mr. Eugene Wrayburn 
sat together in the Temple. This evening, however, they were 
not together in the place of business of the eminent solicitor, 
but in another dismal set of chambers facing it on the same 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 269 

second floor; on whose dungeon-like black outer-door appeared 
the legend : 

Private. 

Mr. Eugene Wrayburn. 

Mr. Mortimer Lightwood. 

(i^^ ^f''^- LightwoocVs offices opposite.) 

Appearances indicated that this establishment was a very 
recent institution. The white letters of the inscription were 
extremely white and extremely strong to the sense of smell, the 
complexion of the tables and chairs was (like Lady Tippins's") 
a little too blooming to be believed in, and the carpets and floor- 
cloth seemed to rush at the beholder's face in the unusual promi- 
nency of their patterns. But the Temple, accustomed to tone 
down both the still life and the human life that has much to do 
with it, would soon get the better of all that. 

" Well ! " said Eugene, on one side of the fire, " I feel tolerably 
comfortable. I hope the upholsterer may do the same." 

"Why shouldn't he?" asked Lightwood, from the other side of 
the fire. 

"To be sure," pursued Eugene, reflecting, "he is not in the 
secret of our pecuniary affairs, so perhaps he may be in an easy 
frame of mind." 

"We shall pay him," said Mortimer. 

" Shall we really 1 " returned Eugene, indolently surprised. "You 
don't say so ! " 

" I mean to pay him, Eugene, for my part," said Mortimer, in a 
slightly injured tone. 

" Ah ! I mean to pay him, too," retorted Eugene. " But then 
I mean so much that I — that I don't mean." 

"Don't mean?" 

" So much that I only mean and shall always only mean and 
nothing more, my dear Mortimer. It's the same thing." 

His friend, lying back in his easy chair, watched him lying back 
in his easy chair, as he stretched out his legs on the hearth-rug, 
and said, with the amused look that Eugene Wrayburn could 
always awaken in him without seeming to try or care : 

" Anyhow, your vagaries have increased the bill." 

" Calls the domestic virtues vagaries ! " exclaimed Eugene, rais- 
ing his eyes to the ceiling. 

" This very complete little kitchen of ours," said Mortimer, "in 
which nothing will ever be cooked " 



270 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"My dear, dear Mortimer," returned his friend, lazily lifting his 
head a little to look at him, " how often have I pointed out to you 
that its moral influence is the important thing ? " 

" Its moral influence on this fellow ! " exclaimed Lightwood, 
laughing. 

"Do me the favour," said Eugene, getting out of his chair with 
much gravity, " to come and inspect that feature of our establish- 
ment which you rashly disparage." With that, taking up a candle, 
he conducted his chum into the fourth room of the set of chambers 
— a little narrow room — which was very completely and neatly 
fitted as a kitchen. "See," said Eugene, "miniature flour-barrel, 
rolling-pin, spice-box, shelf of brown jars, chopping-board, coffee- 
mill, dresser elegantly furnished with crockery, saucepans and 
pans, roasting-jack, a charming kettle, an armoury of dish-covers. 
The moral influence of these objects, in forming the domestic vir- 
tues, may have an immense influence upon me ; not upon you, for 
you are a hopeless case, but upon me. In fact, I have an idea 
that I feel the domestic virtues already forming. Do me the 
favour to step into my bedroom. Secretaire, you see, and abstruse 
set of solid mahogany pigeon-holes, one for every letter of the 
alphabet. To what use do I devote them ? I receive a bill — say 
from Jones. I docket it neatly, at the secretaire, Jones, and I 
put it into pigeon-hole J. It's the next thing to a receipt and is 
quite as satisfactory to wie. And I very much wish, Mortimer," 
sitting on his bed, with the air of a philosopher lecturing a disciple, 
"that my example might induce you to cultivate habits of punc- 
tuality and method ; and, by means of the moral influences with 
which I have surrounded you, to encourage the formation of the 
domestic virtues." 

Mortimer laughed again, with his usual commentaries of " How 
can you be so ridiculous, Eugene ! " and " What an absurd fellow 
you are ! " but when his laugh was out, there was something serious, 
if not anxious, in his face. Despite that pernicious assumption of 
lassitude and indifl'erence, which had become his second nature, he 
was strongly attached to his friend. He had founded himself upon 
Eugene when they were yet boys at school ; and at this hour imi- 
tated him no less, admired him no less, loved him no less, than in 
those departed days. 

" Eugene," said he, "if I could find you in earnest for a minute, 
I would try to say an earnest word to you." 

" An earnest word ? " repeated Eugene. " The moral influences 
are beginning to work. Say on." 

"Well, I will," returned the other, "though you are not earnest 

yet." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 271 

"In this desire for earnestness," murmured Eugene, with the air 
of one who was meditating deeply, " I trace the hap23y influences 
of tlie little flour-barrel and the coflfee-mill. Gratifying." 

" Eugene," resumed Mortimer, disregarding the light interruption, 
and laying a hand upon Eugene's shoulder, as he, Mortimer, stood 
before him seated on his bed, "you are withholding something 
from me." 

Eugene looked at him, but said nothing. 

"All this past summer, you have been withholding something 
from me. Before we entered on our boating vacation, you were as 
bent upon it as I have seen you upon anything since we first rowed 
together. But you cared very little for it when it came, often 
found it a tie and a drag upon you, and were constantly away. 
Now it was well enough half-a-dozen times, a dozen times, twenty 
times, to say to me in your own odd manner, which I know so 
well and like so much, that your disappearances were precautions 
against our boring one another ; but of course after a short while 
I began to know that they covered something. I don't ask what 
it is, as you have not told me ; but the fact is so. Say, is it not ? " 

" I give you my word of honour, Mortimer," returned Eugene, 
after a serious pause of a few moments, "that I don't know." 

" Don't know, Eugene 1 " 

" Upon my soul, don't know. I know less about myself than 
about most people in the world, and I don't know." 

"You have some design in your mind ?" 

" Have I ? I don't think I have." 

"At any rate, you have some subject of interest there which 
used not to be there ? " 

"I really can't say," replied Eugene, shaking his head blankly, 
after pausing again to reconsider. "At times I have thought yes; 
at other times I have thought no. Now, I have been inclined to 
pursue such a subject ; now, I have felt that it was absurd, 
and that it tired and embarrassed me. Absolutely, I can't say. 
Frankly and faithfully, I would if I could." 

So replying, he clapped a hand, in his turn, on his friend's 
shoulder, as he rose from his seat upon the bed, and said : 

" You must take your friend as he is. You know what I am, 
my dear Mortimer. You know how dreadfully susceptible I am to 
boredom. You know that when I became enough of a man to 
find myself an embodied conundrum, I bored myself to the last 
degree by trying to find out what I meant. You know that at 
length I gave it up, and declined to guess any more. Then how 
can I possibly give you the answer that I have not discovered? 
The old nursery form runs, ' Riddle-me-riddle-me-ree, p'raps you 



272 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

can't tell me what this may be ? ' My reply runs, * No. Upon 
my life, I can't.' " 

So much of what was fantastically true to his own knowledge 
of this utterly careless Eugene mingled with the answer, that 
Mortimer could not receive it as a mere evasion. Besides, it was 
given with an engaging air of openness, and of special exemption 
of the one friend he valued, from his reckless indifference. 

" Come, dear boy ! " said Eugene. " Let us try the effect of 
smoking. If it enlightens me at all on this question, I will impart 
unreservedly." 

They returned to the room they had come from, and, finding it 
heated, opened a window. Having lighted their cigars, they leaned 
out of this window, smoking, and looking down at the moonlight, 
as it shone into the court below. 

" No enlightenment," resumed Eugene, after certain minutes of 
silence. "I feel sincerely apologetic, my dear Mortimer, but 
nothing comes." 

" If nothing comes," returned Mortimer, " nothing can come from 
it. So I shall hope that this may hold good throughout, and that 
there may be nothing on foot. Nothing injurious to you, Eugene, 
or " 

Eugene stayed him for a moment with his hand on his arm, while 
he took a piece of earth from an old flowerpot on the window-sill, 
and dexterously shot it at a little point of light opposite ; having 
done which to his satisfaction, he said, "Or?" 

"Or injurious to any one else." 

" How," said Eugene, taking another little piece of earth, and 
shooting it with great precision at the former mark, "how injurious 
to any one else ? " 

" I don't know." 

"And," said Eugene, taking, as he said the word, another shot, 
" to whom else 1 " 

" I don't know." 

Checking himself with another piece of earth in his hand, Eugene 
looked at his friend inquiringly and a little suspiciously. There 
was no concealed or half-expressed meaning in his face. 

"Two belated wanderers in the mazes of the law," said Eugene, 
attracted by the sound of footsteps, and glancing down as he spoke, 
" stray into the court. They examine the door-posts of number one, 
seeking the name they want. Not finding it at number one, they 
come to number two. On the hat of wanderer number two, the 
shorter one, I drop this pellet. Hitting him on the hat, I 
smoke serenely, and become absorbed in contemplation of the 
sky." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 273 

Both the wanderers looked up towards the window ; but, after 
interchanging a mutter or two, soon applied themselves to the door- 
posts below. There they seemed to discover what they wanted, for 
they disappeared from view by entering at the doorway. " When 
they emerge," said Eugene, "you shall see me bring them both 
down ; " and so prepared two pellets for the purpose. 

He had not reckoned on their seeking his name, or Lightwood's. 
But either the one or the other would seem to.be in question, for 
now there came a knock at the door. " I am on duty to-night," 
said Mortimer, " stay you where you are, Eugene." Requiring no 
persuasion, he stayed there, smoking quietly, and not at all curious 
to know who knocked, until Mortimer spoke to him from within 
the room, and touched him. Then, drawing in his head, he found 
the visitors to be young Charley Hexam and the schoolmaster; 
both standing facing him, and both recognised at a glance. 

" You recollect this young fellow, Eugene ? " said Mortimer. 

"Let me look at him," returned Wrayburn, coolly. "Oh, yes, 
yes. I recollect him ! " 

He had not been about to repeat that former action of taking him 
by the chin, but the boy had suspected him of it, and had thrown 
up his arm with an angry start. Laughingly, Wrayburn looked 
to Lightwood for an explanation of this odd visit. 

" He says he has something to say." 

" Surely it must be to you, Mortimer." 

" So I thought, but he says no. He says it is to you." 

"Yes, I do say so," interposed the boy. "And I mean to say 
what I want to say, too, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn ! " 

Passing him with his eyes as if there were nothing where he 
stood, Eugene looked on to Bradley Headstone. With consummate 
indolence, he turned to Mortimer, inquiring : " And who may this 
other person be 1 " 

" I am Charles Hexam's friend," said Bradley ; " I am Charles 
Hexam's schoolmaster." 

" My good sir, you should teach your pupils better manners," 
returned Eugene. 

Composedly smoking, he leaned an elbow on the chimneypiece, 
at the side of the fire, and looked at the schoolmaster. It was a 
cruel look, in its cold disdain of him, as a creature of no worth. 
The schoolmaster looked at him, and that, too, was a cruel look, 
though of the different kind, that it had a raging jealousy and fiery 
wrath in it. 

Very remarkably, neither Eugene Wrayburn nor Bradley Head- 
stone looked at all at the boy. Through the ensuing dialogue, those 
two, no matter who spoke, or Avhom was addressed, looked at each 



274 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

other. There was some secret, sure perception between them, 
which set them against one another in all ways. 

"In some high respects, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn," said Bradley, 
answering him with pale and quivering lips, " the natural feelings 
of my pupils are stronger than my teaching." 

" In most respects, I dare say," replied Eugene, enjoying his cigar, 
" though whether high or low is of no importance. You have my 
name very correctly. Pray what is yours ? " 

" It cannot concern you much to know, but " 

" True," interposed Eugene, striking sharply and cutting him 
short at his mistake, " it does not concern me at all to know. I can 
say Schoolmaster, which is a most respectable title. You are right. 
Schoolmaster." 

It was not the dullest part of this goad in its galling of Bradley 
Headstone, that he had made it himself in a moment of incautious 
anger. He tried to set his lips so as to prevent their quivering, 
but they quivered fast. 

"Mr. Eugene Wrayburn," said the boy, "I want a word with 
you. I have wanted it so much, that we have looked out your 
address in the book, and we have been to your office, and we have 
come from your office here." 

" You have given yourself much trouble. Schoolmaster," observed 
Eugene, blowing the feathery ash from his cigar. " I hope it may 
prove remunerative." 

" And I am glad to speak," pursued the boy, " in presence of 
Mr. Lightwood, because it was through Mr. Lightwood that you 
ever saw my sister." 

For a mere moment, Wrayburn turned his eyes aside from the 
schoolmaster to note the effect of the last word on Mortimer, who, 
standing on the opposite side of the fire, as soon as the word 
was spoken, turned his face towards the fire and looked down into it. 

" Similarly, it was through Mr. Lightwood that you ever saw 
her again, for you were with him on the night when my father was 
found, and so I found you with her on the next day. Since then, 
you have seen my sister often. You have seen my sister oftener 
and oftener. And I want to know why 1 " 

"Was this worth while. Schoolmaster ? " murmured Eugene, 
with the air of. a disinterested adviser. " So much trouble for 
nothing 1 You should know best, but I think not." 

"I don't know, Mr. Wrayburn," answered Bradley, With his 
passion rising, " why you address me " 

" Don't you ? " said Eugene. " Then I won't." 

He said it so tauntingly in his perfect placidity, that the 
respectable right hand clutching the respectable hair-guard of the 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 275 

respectable watch could have wound it round his throat and stran- 
gled him with it. Not another word did Eugene deem it worth 
while to utter, but stood leaning his head upon his hand, smoking 
and looking imperturbably at the chafing Bradley Headstone with 
his clutching right hand, until Bradley was wellnigh mad. 

"Mr. Wrayburn," proceeded the boy, "we not only know this 
that I have charged upon you, but we know more. It has not yet 
come to my sister's knowledge that we have found it out, but we 
have. We had a plan, Mr. Headstone and I, for my sister's educa- 
tion, and for its being advised and overlooked by Mr. Headstone, 
who is a much more competent authority, whatever you may pre- 
tend to think, as you smoke, than you could produce, if you tried. 
Then what do we find ? What do we find, Mr. Lightwood ? Why, 
we find that my sister is already being taught, without our knowing 
it. We find that while my sister gives an unwilling and cold ear 
to our schemes for her advantage — I, her brother, and Mr. Head- 
stone, the most competent authority, as his certificates would easily 
prove, that could be produced — she is wilfully and willingly profit- 
ing by other schemes. Ay, and taking pains, too, for I l^now what 
such pains are. And so does Mr. Headstone ! Well ! Somebody 
pays for this, is a thought that naturally occurs to us ; who pays ? 
We apply ourselves to find out, Mr. Lightwood, and we find that 
your friend, this Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, here, pays. Then I ask 
him what right has he to do it, and what does he mean by it, and 
how comes he to be taking such a liberty without my consent, 
when I am raising myself in the scale of society by my own exer- 
tions and Mr. Headstone's aid, and have no right to have any 
darkness cast upon my prospects, or any imputation upon my re- 
spectability, through my sister ? " 

The boyish weakness of this speech, combined with its great 
selfishness, made it a poor one indeed. And yet Bradley Headstone, 
used to the little audience of a school, and unused to the larger 
ways of men, showed a kind of exultation in it. 

"Now I tell Mr. Eugene Wrayburn," pursued the boy, forced 
into the use of the third person by the hopelessness of addressing 
him in the first, " that I object to his having any acquaintance at 
all with my sister, and that I request him to drop it altogether. 
He is not to take it into his head that I am afraid of my sister's 
caring for him " 

(As the boy sneered, the Master sneered, and Eugene blew off" the 
feathery ash again.) 

" — But I object to it, and that's enough. I am more important 
to my sister than he thinks. As I raise myself, I intend to raise 
her ; she knows that, and she has to look to me for her prospects. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 277 

Now I understand all this very well, and so does Mr. Headstone. 
My sister is an excellent girl, but she has some romantic notions ; 
not about such things as your Mr. Eugene Wrayburns, but about 
the death of my father and other matters of that sort. Mr. Wray- 
burn encourages those notions to make himself of importance, and 
so she thinks she ought to be grateful to him, and perhaps even 
likes to be. Now I don't choose her to be grateful to him, or to 
be grateful to anybody but me, except Mr. Headstone. And I tell 
Mr. Wrayburn that if he don't take heed of what I say, it will be 
worse for her. Let him turn that over in his memory, and make 
sure of it. Worse for her ! " 

A pause ensued, in which the schoolmaster looked very awkward. 

"May I suggest, Schoolmaster," said Eugene, removing his fast- 
waning cigar from his lips to glance at it, " that you can now take 
your pupil away 1 " 

"And Mr. Lightwood," added the boy, with a burning face, 
under the flaming aggravation of getting no sort of answer or atten- 
tion, " I hope you'll take notice of what I have said to your friend, 
and of what your friend has heard me say, word by word, whatever 
he pretends to the contrary. You are bound to take notice of it, 
Mr. Lightwood, for, as I have already mentioned, you first brought 
your friend into my sister's company, and but for you we never 
should have seen him. Lord knows none of us ever wanted him, 
any more than any of us will ever miss him. Now Mr. Headstone, 
as Mr. Eugene Wrayburn has been obliged to hear what I had to 
say, and couldn't help himself, and as I have said it out to the last 
word, we have done all we wanted to do, and may go." 

" Go down-stairs, and leave me a moment, Hexam," he returned. 
The boy complying with an indignant look and as much noise as 
he could make, swung out of the room ; and Lightwood went to 
the window, and leaned there, looking out. 

" You think me of no more value than the dirt under your feet," 
said Bradley to Eugene, speaking in a carefully weighed and meas- 
ured tone, or he could not have spoken at all. 

"I assure you, Schoolmaster," replied Eugene, "I don't think 
about you." 

" That's not true," returned the other ; "you know better." 

" That's coarse," Eugene retorted ; " but you don't know better," 

" Mr. Wrayburn, at least I know very well that it would be 
idle to set myself against you in insolent words or overbearing 
manners. That lad who has just gone out could put you to shame 
in half-a-dozen branches of knowledge in half an hour, but you can 
throw him aside like an inferior. You can do as much by me, I 
have no doubt, beforehand." 



278 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Possibly," remarked Eugene. 

" But I am more than a lad," said Bradley, with his clutching 
hand, " and I will be heard, sir." 

"As a schoolmaster," said Eugene, "you are always being heard. 
That ought to content you." 

"But it does not content me," replied the other, white with pas- 
sion. "Do you suppose that a man, in forming himself for the 
duties I discharge, and in watching and repressing himself daily to 
discharge them well, dismisses a man's nature ? " 

"I suppose you," said Eugene, "judging from what I see as I 
look at you, to be rather too passionate for a good schoolmaster." 
As he spoke, he tossed away the end of his cigar. 

" Passionate with you, sir, I admit I am. Passionate with you, sir, 
I respect myself for being. But I have not Devils for my pupils." 

" For your Teachers, I should rather say," replied Eugene. 

"Mr. Wrayburn." 

" Schoolmaster." 

" Sir, my name is Bradley Headstone." 

"As you justly said, my good sir, your name cannot concern me. 
Now, what more ? " 

"This more. Oh, what a misfortune is mine," cried Bradley, 
breaking ojff to wipe the starting perspiration from his face as he 
shook from head to foot, " that I cannot so control myself as to 
appear a stronger creature than this, when a man who has not felt 
in all his life what I have felt in a day can so command himself ! " 
He said it in a very agony, and even followed it with an errant 
motion of his hands as if he could have torn himself. 

Eugene Wrayburn looked on at him, as if he found him begin- 
ning to be rather an entertaining study. 

"Mr. Wrayburn, I desire to say something to you on my own 
part." 

" Come, come, Schoolmaster," returned Eugene, with a languid 
approach to impatience as the other again struggled witli himself; 
" say what you have to say. And let me remind you that the door 
is standing open, and your young friend waiting for you on the 
stairs." 

" When I accompanied that youth here, sir, I did so with the 
purpose of adding, as a man whom you should not be permitted 
to put aside, in case you put him aside as a boy, that his instinct 
is correct and right." Thus Bradley Headstone, with great effort 
and difficulty. 

" Is that all ? " asked Eugene. 

"No, sir," said the other, flushed and fierce. "I strongly sup- 
port him in his disapproval of your visits to his sister, and in his 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 279 

objection to your officiousness — and worse — in what you have 
taken upon yourself to do for her." 

" Is that all 1 " asked Eugene. 

" Ko, sir. I determined to tell you that you are not justified 
ill these proceedings, and that they are injurious to his sister." 

"Are you her schoolmaster as well as her brother's ? — Or per- 
haps you would like to be 1 " said Eugene. 

It was a stab that the blood followed, in its rush to Bradley 
Headstone's face, as swiftly as if it had been dealt with a dagger. 
" What do you mean by that ? " was as much as he could utter. 

"A natural ambition enough," said Eugene, coolly. "Far be it 
from me to say otherwise. The sister — who is something too 
much upon your lips, perhaps — is so very different from all the 
associations to which she has been used, and from all the low 
obscure people about her, that it is a very natural ambition." 

" Do you throw my obscurity in my teeth, Mr. Wrayburn 1 " 

" That can hardly be, for I know nothing concerning it. School- 
master, and seek to know nothing." 

"You reproach me with my origin," said Bradley Headstone; 
" you cast insinuations at my bringing-up. But I tell you, sir, I 
have worked my way onward, out of both and in spite of both, 
and have a right to be considered a better man than you, with 
better reasons for being proud." 

" How I can reproach you with what is not within my knowl- 
edge, or how I can cast stones that were never in my hand, is a 
problem for the ingenuity of a schoolmaster to prove," returned 
Eugene. " Is that all ? " 

" No, sir. If you suppose that boy " 

" Who really will be tired of waiting," said Eugene, politely. 

" If you suppose that boy to be friendless, Mr. WTayburn, you 
deceive yourself. I am his friend, and you shall find me so." 

" And you will find him on the stairs," remarked Eugene. 

"You may have promised yourself, sir, that you could do what 
you chose here, because you had to deal with a mere boy, inexperi- 
enced, friendless, and unassisted. But I give you warning that 
this mean calculation is wrong. You have to do with a man 
also. You have to do with me. I will support him, and, if need 
be, require reparation for him. My hand and heart are in this 
cause, and are open to him." 

"And — quite a coincidence — the door is open," remarked 
Eugene. 

" I scorn your shifty evasions, and I scorn you," said the school- 
master. " In the meanness of your nature you revile me with the 
meanness of my birth. I hold you in contempt for it. But if 



280 OUR MUTUAL ERIEND. 

you don't profit by this visit, and act accordingly, you will find me 
as bitterly in earnest against you as I could be if I deemed you 
worth a second thought on my own account." 

With a consciously bad grace and stifl" manner, as Wrayburn 
looked so easily and calmly on, he went out Avith these words, and 
the heavy door closed like a furnace-door upon his red and white 
heats of rage. 

" A curious monomaniac," said Eugene. " The man seems to 
believe that everybody was acquainted with his mother ! " 

Mortimer Lightwood being still at the window, to which he had 
in delicacy withdrawn, Eugene called to him, and he fell to slowly 
pacing the room. 

"My dear fellow," said Eugene, as he lighted another cigar, " I 
fear my unexpected visitors have been troublesome. If as a set-off 
(excuse the legal phrase from a barrister-at-law) you would like to 
ask Tippins to tea, I pledge myself to make love to her." 

"Eugene, Eugene, Eugene," replied Mortimer, still pacing the 
room, " I am sorry for this. And to think that I have been so 
blind ! " 

" How blind, dear boy ? " inquired his unmoved friend. 

"What were your words that night at the river-side public- 
house ? " said Lightwood, stopping. " What was it that you asked 
me ? Did I feel like a dark combination of traitor and pickpocket 
when I thought of that girl ? " 

"I seem to remember the expression," said Eugene. 

" How do you feel when you think of her just now? " 

His friend made no direct reply, but observed, after a few whiffs 
of his cigar, "Don't mistake the situation. There is no better 
girl in all this London than Lizzie Hexam. There is no better 
among my people at home ; no better among your people." 

" Granted. What follows % " 

"There," said Eugene, looking after him dubiously as he paced 
away to the other end of the room, "you put me again upon guess- 
ing the riddle that I have given up." 

"Eugene, do you design to capture and desert this girl?" 

" My dear fellow, no." 

" Do you design to marry her ? " 

" My dear fellow, no." 

" Do you design to pursue her % " 

" My dear fellow, I don't design anything. I have no design 
whatever. I am incapable of designs. If I conceived a design, 
I should speedily abandon it, exhausted by the operation." 

" Oh Eugene, Eugene ! " 

"My dear Mortimer, not that tone of melancholy reproach, I 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 281 

entreat. What can I do more than tell you all I know, and 
acknowledge my ignorance of all I don't know ! How does that 
little old song go, which, under pretence of being cheerful, is by 
far the most lugubrious I ever heard in my life ? 

' Away with melancholy, 
Nor doleful changes ring 
On life and human folly, 
But merrily merrily sing 

Fal la ! ' 

Don't let us sing Fal la, my dear Mortimer (which is comparatively 
unmeaning), but let us sing that we give up guessing the riddle 
altogether." 

" Are you in communication with this girl, Eugene, and is what 
these people say true ? " 

" I concede both admissions to my honourable and learned friend." 

"Then what is to come of it? What are you doing? Where 
are you going ? " 

"My dear Mortimer, one would think the schoolmaster had 
left behind him a catechizing infection. You are ruffled by the 
want of another cigar. Take one of these, I entreat. Light it 
at mine, which is in perfect order. So ! Now do me the justice 
to observe that I am doing all I can towards self-improvement, 
and that you have a light thrown on those household implements 
which, when you only saw them as in a glass darkly, you were has- 
tily — I must say hastily — inclined to depreciate. Sensible of 
my deficiencies, I have surrounded myself with moral influences 
expressly meant to promote the formation of the domestic virtues. 
To those influences, and to the improving society of my friend 
from boyhood, commend me with your best wishes." 

" Ah, Eugene ! " said Lightwood, affectionately, now standing 
near him, so that they both stood in one little cloud of smoke ; 
"I would that you answered my three questions! What is to 
come of it 1 What are you doing 1 Where are you going 1 " 

"And my dear Mortimer," returned Eugene, lightly fanning 
away the smoke with his hand for the better exposition of his 
frankness of face and manner, "believe me, I would answer them 
instantly if I could. But to enable me to do so, I must first have 
found out the troublesome conundrum long abandoned. Here it is. 
Eugene Wrayburn." Tapping his forehead and breast. " Riddle- 
me, riddle-me-ree, perhaps you can't tell me what this may be ? — 
No, upon my life I can't. I give it up ! " 



282 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

CHAPTER VII. 

IN WHICH A FKIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED. 

The arrangement between Mr. Boffin and his literary man, Mr. 
Silas Wegg, so flir altered with the altered habits of Mr. Boffin's 
life, as that the Roman Empire usually declined in the morning 
and in the eminently aristocratic family mansion, rather than in 
the evening, as of yore, and in Boffin's Bower. There were occa- 
sions, however, when Mr. Boffin, seeking a brief refuge from the 
blandishments of fashion, would present himself at the Bower after 
dark, to anticipate the next sallying forth of Wegg, and would 
there, on the old settle, pursue the downward fortunes of those 
enervated and corrupted masters of the world who were by this 
time on their last legs. If Wegg had been worse paid for his 
office, or better qualified to discharge it, he would have considered 
these visits complimentary and agreeable ; but, holding the position 
of a handsomely-remunerated humbug, he resented them. This 
was quite according to rule, for the incompetent servant, by whom- 
soever employed, is always against his employer. Even those born 
governors, noble and right honourable creatures, who have been the 
most imbecile in high places, have uniformly sho^vn themselves the 
most opposed (sometimes in belying distrust, sometimes in vapid 
insolence) to their employer. What is in such wise true of the 
public master and servant, is equally true of the private master 
and servant all the world over. 

When Mr. Silas Wegg did at last obtain free access to " Our 
House," as he had been wont to call the mansion outside which he 
had sat shelterless so long, and when he did at last find it in all 
particulars as diff'erent from his mental plans of it as according to 
the nature of things it well could be, that far-seeing and far-reaching 
character, by way of asserting himself and making out a case for 
compensation, affected to fall into a melancholy strain of musing 
over the mournful past : as if the house and he had had a fall in 
life together. 

"And this, sir," Silas would say to his patron, sadly nodding 
his head and musing, " was once Our House ! This, sir, is the 
building from which I have so often seen those great creatures, 
Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker " — 
whose very names were of his own inventing — " pass and repass ! 
And has it come to this, indeed ! Ah dear me, dear me ! " 

So tender were his lamentations, that the kindly Mr. Boffin was 
quite sorry for him, and almost felt mistrustful that in buying the 
house he had done him an irreparable injury. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 283 

Two or three diiDlomatic interviews, the result of great subtlety 
on Mr. Wegg's part, but assuming the mask of careless yielding to 
a fortuitous combination of circumstances impelling him towards 
Clerkenwell, had enabled him to complete his bargain with Mr. 
Venus. 

" Bring me round to the Bower," said Silas, when the bargain 
was closed, " next Saturday evening, and if a sociable glass of old 
Jamaikey warm should meet your views, I am» not the man to 
begrudge it." 

" You are aware of my being poor company, sir," replied Mr. 
Venus, "but be it so." 

It being so, here is Saturday evening come, and here is Mr. Venus 
come, and ringing at the Bower-gate. 

Mr. Wegg opens the gate, descries a sort of brown paper trun- 
cheon under Mr. Venus's arm, and remarks, in a dry tone : " Oh ! 
I thought perhaps you might have come in a cab." 

"No, Mr. Wegg," replies Venus. "I am not above a parcel." 

"Above a parcel ! No ! " says Wegg, with some dissatisfaction. 
But does not openly growl, " a certain sort of parcel might be above 
you." 

"Here is your purchase, Mr. Wegg," says Venus, politely hand- 
ing it over, "and I am glad to restore it to the source from whence 
it — flowed." 

" Thankee," says Wegg. " Now this affair is concluded, I may 
mention to you in a friendly way that I have my doubts whether, 
if I had consulted a lawyer, you could have kept this article back 
from me. I only throw it out as a legal point." 

"Do you think so, Mr. Wegg? I bought you in open contract." 

" You can't buy human flesh and blood in this country, sir ; not 
alive, you can't," says Wegg, shaking his head. " Then query, 
bone?" 

"As a legal point?" asks Venus. 

"As a legal point." 

"I am not competent to speak upon that, Mr. Wegg," says 
Venus, reddening and growing something louder; "but upon a 
point of fact I think myself competent to speak ; and as a point of 
fact I would have seen you — will you allow me to say, further ? " 

"I wouldn't say more than further, if I was you," Mr. Wegg 
suggests pacifically. 

" — Before I'd have given that packet into your hand without 
being paid my price for it. I don't pretend to know how the point 
of law may stand, but I'm thoroughly confident upon the point of 
fact." 

As Mr. Venus is irritable (no doubt owing to his disappointment 



284 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

iu love), and as it is not the cue of Mr. Wegg to have him out of 
temper, the latter gentleman soothingly remarks, " I only put it as 
a little case ; I only put it ha'porthetically." 

" Then I'd rather, Mr. Wegg, you put it another time, penn'or- 
thetically," is Mr. Venus's retort, "for I tell you candidly I don't 
like your httle cases." 

Arrived by this time in Mr. Wegg's sitting-room, made bright on 
the chilly evening- by gaslight and fire, Mr. Venus softens and com- 
pliments him on his abode ; profiting by the occasion to remind 
Wegg that he (Venus) told him he had got into a good thing. 

"Tolerable," Wegg rejoins. "But bear in mind, Mr. Venus, 
that there's no gold without its alloy. Mix for yourself and take 
a seat in the chimbley-corner. Will you perform upon a pipe, sir ? " 

"I am but an indifferent performer, sir," returns the other; 
"but I'll accompany you with a whiff or two at intervals." 

So, Mr. Venus mixes, and Wegg mixes; and Mr. Venus lights 
and puffs, and Wegg lights and puffs. 

" And there's alloy even in this metal of yours, Mr. Wegg, you 
was remarking ? " 

"Mystery," returns Wegg. "I don't like it, Mr. Venus. I 
don't like to have the life knocked out of former inhabitants of 
this house, in the gloomy dark, and not know who did it." 

" Might you have any suspicions, Mr. Wegg ? " 

"No," returns that gentleman. "I know who profits by it. 
But I have no suspicions." 

Having said which, Mr. Wegg smokes and looks at the fire with 
a most determined expression of Charity ; as if he had caught that 
cardinal virtue by the skirts, as she felt it her painful duty to 
depart from him, and held her by main force. 

"Similarly," resumes Wegg, "I have observations as I can offer 
upon certain points and parties ; but I make no objections, Mr. 
Venus. Here is an immense fortune drops from the clouds upon 
a person that shall be nameless. Here is a weekly allowance, with 
a certain weight of coals, drops from the clouds upon me. Which 
of us is the better man 1 Not the person that shall be nameless. 
That's an observation of mine, but I don't make it an objection. 
I take my allowance and my certain weight of coals. He takes 
his fortune. That's the way it works." 

"It would be a good thing for me, if I could see things in the 
calm light you do, Mr. Wegg." 

"Again look here," pursues Silas, with an oratorical flourish of 
his pipe and his wooden leg : the latter having an undignified 
tendency to tilt him back in his chair ; " here's another observa- 
tion, Mr. Venus, unaccompanied with an objection. Him that 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 285 

shall be nameless is liable to be talked over. He gets talked over. 
Him that shall be nameless, having me at his right hand, naturally 
looking to be promoted higher, and you may perhaps say meriting 
to be promoted higher " 

(Mr. Venus murmurs that he does say so.) 

" — Him that shall be nameless, under such circumstances, 
passes me by, and puts a talking-over stranger above my head. 
Which of us two is the better man ? Which of us two can repeat 
most poetry? Which of us two has, in the service of him that 
shall be nameless, tackled the Romans, both civil and military, 
till he has got as husky as if he'd been weaned and ever since 
brought up on sawdust ? Not the talking-over stranger. Yet the 
house is as free to him as if it was his, and he has his room, and 
is put upon a footing, and draws about a thousand a year. I am 
banished to the Bower, to be found in it like a piece of furniture 
whenever wanted. Merit, therefore, don't win. That's the way 
it works. I observe it, because I can't help observing it, being 
accustomed to take a powerful sight of notice ; but I don't object. 
Ever here before, Mr. Venus 1 " 

" Not inside the gate, Mr. Wegg." 

"You've been as far as the gate then, Mr. Venus?" 

" Yes, Mr. Wegg, and peeped in from curiosity." 

"Did you see anything?" 

" Nothing but the dust-yard." 

Mr. Wegg rolls his eyes all round the room, in that ever unsat- 
isfied quest of his, and then rolls his eyes all round Mr. Venus; 
as if suspicious of his having something about him to be found out. 

"And yet, sir," he pursues, "being acquainted with old Mr. 
Harmon, one would have thought it might have been polite in you, 
too, to give him a call. And you're naturally of a polite disposi- 
tion, you are." This last clause as a softening compliment to Mr. 
Venus. 

"It is true, sir," replies Venus, winking his weak eyes, and run- 
ning his fingers through his dusty shock of hair, " that I was so, 
before a certain observation soured me. You understand to what 
I allude, Mr. Wegg? To a certain written statement respecting 
not wishing to be regarded in a certain light. Since that, all is 
fled, save gall." 

" Not all," says Mr. Wegg, in a tone of sentimental condolence. 

" Yes, sir," returns Venus, " all ! The world may deem it harsh, 
but I'd quite as soon pitch into my best friend as not. Indeed, I'd 
sooner ! " 

Involuntarily making a pass with his wooden leg to guard him- 
self as Mr. Venus springs up in the emphasis of this unsociable 



286 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

declaration, Mr. Wegg tilts over his back, chair and all, and is 
rescued by that harmless misanthrope, in a disjointed state and 
ruefully rubbing his head. 

" Why, you lost your balance, Mr. Wegg," says Venus, handing 
him his pipe. 

"And about time to do it," gi'umbled Silas, "when a man's 
visitors, without a word of notice, conduct themselves with the 
sudden wiciousness of Jacks-in-boxes ! Don't come flying out of 
your chair like that, Mr. Venus ! " 

" I ask your pardon, Mr. Wegg. I am so soured." 

"Yes, but hang it," says Wegg argumentatively, "a well-gov- 
erned mind can be soured sitting ! And as to being reg&,rded in 
lights, there's bumpy lights as well as bony. In which," again 
iTibbing his head, " I object to regard myself." 

" I'll bear it in memory, sir." 

" If you'll be so good." Mr. Wegg slowly subdues his ironical 
tone and his lingering irritation, and resumes his pipe. " We were 
talking of old Mr. Harmon being a friend of yours." 

" Not a friend, Mr. Wegg. Only known to speak to, and to 
have a little deal with now and then. A very inquisitive char- 
acter, Mr. Wegg, regarding what was found in the dust. As 
inquisitive as secret." 

" Ah ! You found him secret % " returns Wegg, with a greedy 
relish. 

" He had always the look of it, and the manner of it." 

"Ah ! " with another roll of his eyes. "As to what was found 
in the dust now. Did you ever hear him mention how he found 
it, my dear friend % Living on the mysterious premises, one would 
like to know. For instance, where he found things % Orj for 
instance, how he set about it % Whether he began at the top of 
the mounds, or whether he began at the bottom. Whether he 
prodded ; " Mr. Wegg's pantomime is skilful and exj^ressive here ; 
" or whether he scooped % Should you say scooped, my dear Mr. 
Venus ; or should you — as a man — say prodded ? " 

" I should say neither, Mr. Wegg." 

" As a fellow-man, Mr. Venus — mix again — why neither ? " 

" Because I suppose, sir, that what was found was found in the 
sorting and sifting. AH the mounds are sorted and sifted ? " 

"You shall see 'em and pass your opinion. Mix again." 

On each occasion of his saying "mix again," Mr. Wegg, with 
a hop on his wooden leg, hitches his chair a little nearer ; more as 
if he were proposing that himself and Mr. Venus should mix again, 
than that they should replenish their glasses. 

"Living (as I said before) on the mysterious premises," says 



OUR MUTUAL ERIEND. 287 

Wegg when the other has acted on his hospitable entreaty, " one 
likes to know. Would you be inclined to say now — as a brother 

— that he ever hid things in the dust, as well as found 'em ? " 
"Mr. Wegg, on the whole, I should say he might." 

Mr. Wegg claps on his spectacles, and admiringly surveys Mr. 
Venus from head to foot. 

" As a mortal equally with myself, whose hand I take in mine 
for the first time this day, having unaccountably overlooked that 
act so full of boundless confidence binding a fellow-creetur to a 
fellow-creetur," says Wegg, holding Mr. Yenus's palm out, flat and 
ready for smiting, and now smiting it ; " as such — and no other 

— for I scorn all lowlier ties betwixt myself and the man walking 
with his face erect that alone I call my Twin — regarded and 
regarding in this trustful bond — what do you think he might 
have hid?" 

"It is but a supposition, Mr. Wegg." 

" As a Being with his hand upon his heart," cries Wegg ; and 
the apostrophe is not the less impressive for the Being's hand 
being actually upon his rum and water; "put your supposition 
into language, and bring it out, Mr. Venus ! " 

" He was the species of old gentleman, sir," slowly returns that 
practical anatomist, after drinking, " that I should judge likely to 
take such opportunities as this place offered, of stowing away 
money, valuables, maybe papers." 

"As one that was ever an ornament to human life," says Mr. 
Wegg, again liolding out Mr. Venus's palm as if he were going to 
tell his fortune by chiromancy, and holding his own up ready 
for smiting it when the time should come; "as one that the 
poet might liave had his eye on, in writing the national naval 
words : 

Helm a- weather, now lay her close, 

Yard arm and yard arm she lies ; 
Again, cried I, Mr. \^enus, give her t'other dose, 

Man shrouds and grapple, sir, or she flies ! 

— that is to say, regarded in the light of true British Oak, for such 
you are — explain, Mr. Venus, the expression ' papers ' ! " 

" Seeing that the old gentleman was generally cutting off some 
near relation, or blocking out some natural affection," Mr. Venus 
rejoins, " he most likely made a good many wills and codicils." 

The palm of Silas Wegg descends with a sounding smack upon 
the palm of Venus, and Wegg lavishly exclaims, " Twin in opinion 
equally with feeling ! Mix a little more ! " 

Having now hitched his wooden leg and his chair close in 



288 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

front of Mr. Venus, Mr. Wegg rapidly mixes for both, gives his 
visitor his glass, touches its rim with the rim of his o\Yn, puts 
his own to his lips, puts it down, and spreading his hands on 
his visitor's knees, thus addresses him : 

" Mr. Venus. It ain't that I object to being passed over for a 
stranger, though I regard the stranger as a more than doubtful 
customer. It ain't for the sake of making money, though money 
is ever welcome. It ain't for myself, though I am not so haughty 
as to be above doing myself a good turn. It's for the cause of right." 

Mr. Venus passively winking his weak eyes both at once, 
demands : "What is, Mr. Wegg?" 

"The friendly move, sir, that I now propose. You see the 
move, sir ? " 

" Till you have pointed it out, Mr. Wegg, I can't say whether 
I do or not." 

"If there is anything to be found on these premises, let us 
find it together. Let us make the friendly move of agreeing to 
look for it together. Let us make the friendly move of agreeing 
to share the profits of it equally betwixt us. In the cause of the 
right." Thus Silas, assuming a noble air. 

" Then," says Mr. Venus, looking up, after meditating with 
his hair held in his hands, as if he could only fix his attention 
by fixing his head : " if anything was to be unburied from under 
the dust, it would be kept a secret by you and me 1 Would 
that be it, Mr. Wegg?" 

" That would depend upon what it was, Mr. Venus. Say it 
was money, or plate, or jewellery, it would be as much ours as 
anybody else's." 

Mr. Venus rubs an eyebrow, interrogatively. 

"In the cause of the right it would. Because it would be 
unknowingly sold with the mounds else, and the buyer would get 
what he was never meant to have, and never bought. And what 
would that be, Mr. Venus, but the cause of the wrong ? " 

"Say it was papers," Mr. Venus propounds. 

"According to what they contained we should off'er to dispose 
of 'era to the parties most interested," replies Wegg, promptly. 

" In the cause of the right, Mr. Wegg 1 " 

"Always so, Mr. Venus. If the parties should use them in 
the cause of the wrong, that would be their act and deed. Mr. 
Venus. I have an opinion of you, sir, to which it is not easy to 
give mouth. Since I called upon you that evening when you 
were, as I may say, floating your powerful mind in tea, I have felt 
that you required to be roused with an object. In this friendly 
move, sir, you will have a glorious object to rouse you." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 289 

Mr. Wegg then goes on to enlarge upon what throughout 
has been uppermost in his crafty mind : — the quaUfications of 
Mr. Venus for such a search. He expatiates on Mr. Venus's 
patient habits and delicate manipulation ; on his skill in piec- 
ing little things together; on his knowledge of various tissues 
and textures ; on the likelihood of small indications leading him 
on to the discovery of great concealments. "While as to myself," 
says Wegg, " I am not good at it. Whether I gave myself up to 
prodding, or whether I gave myself up to scooping, I couldn't 
do it with that delicate touch so as not to show that I was dis- 
turbing the mounds. Quite different with you, going to work (as 
you would) in the light of a fellow-man holily pledged in a 
friendly move to his brother man." Mr. Wegg next modestly 
remarks on the want of adaptation in a wooden leg to ladders 
and such -like airy perches, and also hints at an inherent tendency 
in that timber fiction, when called into action for the purposes 
of a promenade on an ashy slope, to stick itself into the yielding 
foothold, and peg its owner to one spot. Then, leaving this 
part of the subject, he remarks on the special phenomenon that 
before his installation in the Bower, it was from Mr. Venus that 
he first heard of the legend of hidden wealth in the Mounds; 
"which," he observes with a vaguely pious air, " was surely never 
meant for nothing." Lastly, he returns to the cause of the 
right, gloomily foreshadowing the possibility of something being 
unearthed to criminate Mr. Boffin (of whom he once more candidly 
admits it cannot be denied that he profits by a murder), and 
anticipating his denunciation by the friendly movers to avenging 
justice. And this, Mr. Wegg expressly points out, not at all for 
the sake of the reward — though it would be a want of principle 
not to take it. 

To all this, Mr. Venus, with his shock of dusty hair cocked 
after the manner of a terrier's ears, attends profoundly. When 
Mr. Wegg, having finished, opens his arms wide, as if to show 
Mr. Venus how bare his breast is, and then folds them pending a 
reply, Mr. Venus winks at him with both eyes some little time 
before speaking. 

"I see you have tried it by yourself, Mr. Wegg," he says when 
he does speak. "You have found out the difficulties by experience." 

" No, it can hardly be said that I have tried it," replies Wegg, a 
little dashed by the hint. " I have just skimmed it. Skimmed it." 

" And found nothing besides the difficulties % " 

Wegg shakes his head. 

"I scarcely know what to say to this, Mr. Wegg," observes 
Venus, after ruminating for a while. 



290 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Say yes," Wegg naturally urges. 

"If I wasn't soured, my answer would be No. But being 
soured, Mr. Wegg, and driven to reckless madness and desperation, 
I suppose it's Yes." 

Wegg joyfully reproduces the two glasses, repeats the ceremony 
of clinking their rims, and inwardly drinks with great heartiness 
to the health and success in life of the young lady who has 
reduced Mr. Venus to his present convenient state of mind. 

The articles of the friendly move are then severally recited and 
agreed upon. They are but secrecy, fidelity, and perseverance. 
The Bower to be always free of access to Mr. Venus for his re- 
searches, and every precaution to be taken against their attracting 
observation in the neighbourhood. 

" There's a footstep ! " exclaims Venus. 

" Where ? " cries Wegg, starting. 

" Outside. St ! " 

They are in the act of ratifying the treaty of friendly move, by 
shaking hands upon it. They softly break off, light their pipes, 
which have gone out, and lean back in their chairs. No doubt a 
footstep. It approaches the window, and a hand taps at the glass. 
" Come in ! " calls Wegg; meaning come round by the door. But 
the heavy old-fashioned sash is slowly raised, and a head slowly 
looks in out of the dark background of night. 

" Pray is Mr. Silas Wegg here ? Oh ! I see him ! " 

The friendly movers might not have been quite at their ease, 
even though the visitor had entered in the usual manner. But, 
leaning on the breast-high window, and staring in out of the dark- 
ness, they find the visitor extremely embarrassing. Especially 
Mr. Venus : who removes his pipe, draws back his head, and 
stares at the starer, as if it were his own Hindoo baby come to 
fetch him home. 

"Good evening, Mr. Wegg. The yard gate-lock should be 
looked to, if you please ; it don't catch." 

" Is it Mr. Rokesmith 1 " falters Wegg. 

" It is Mr. Rokesmith. Don't let me disturb you. I am not 
coming in. I have only a message for you, which I undertook to 
deliver on my way home to my lodgings. I w^as in two minds 
about coming beyond the gate without ringing ; not knowing but 
you might have a dog about." 

"I wish I had," mutters Wegg, with his back turned as he rose 
from his chair. " St ! Hush ! The talking-over stranger, Mr. 
Venus." 

" Is that any one I know 1 " inquires the staring Secretary. 

" No. Mr. Rokesmith. Friend of mine. Passing the evening 
with me." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 291 

" Oh ! I beg his pardon. Mr. BoflQn wishes you to know that 
he does not expect you to stay at home any evening on the chance 
of his coming. It has occurred to him that he may, without in- 
tending it, have been a tie upon you. In future, if he should 
come without notice, he will take his chance of finding you, and it 
will be all the same to him if he does not. I undertook to tell 
you on my way. That's all," 

With that, and "Good-night," the Secretary lowers the window, 
and disappears. They listen, and hear his footsteps go back to the 
gate, and hear the gate close after him. 

"And for that individual, Mr. Venus," remarks Wegg, when he 
is fully gone, " / have been passed over ! Let me ask you what 
you think of him ? " 

Apparently Mr. Venus does not know what to think of him, for 
he makes sundry eff'orts to reply, without delivering himself of any 
other articulate utterance than that he has " a singular look." 

" A double look, you mean, sir," rejoins Wegg, playing bitterly 
upon the word. " That's his look. Any amount of singular look 
for me, but not a double look ! That's an underhanded mind, sir." 

"Do you say there's something against him?" Venus asks. 

" Something against him 1 " repeats ^agg. " Something ? What 
would the relief be to my feelings — as a fellow-man — if I wasn't 
the slave of truth, and didn't feel myself compelled to answer, 
Everything ! " 

See into what wonderful maudlin refuges featherless ostriches 
plunge their heads ! It is such unspeakable moral compensation 
to Wegg to be overcome by the consideration that Mr. Rokesmith 
has an underhanded mind ! 

" On this starlight night, Mr. Venus," he remarks, when he is 
showing that friendly mover out across the yard, and both are 
something the worse for mixing again and again : "on this star- 
light night to think that talking-over strangers, and underhanded 
minds, can go walking home under the sky, as if they was all 
square ! " 

" The spectacle of those orbs," says Mr. Venus, gazing upward 
with his hat tumbling off, "brings heavy on me her crushing 
words that she did not wish to regard herself nor yet to be re- 
garded in that " 

"I know! I know! You needn't repeat 'em," says Wegg, 
pressing his hand. " But think how those stars steady me in the 
cause of the right against some that shall be nameless. It isn't 
that I bear malice. But see how they glisten with old remem- 
brances ! Old remembrances of what, sir 1 " 

Mr. Venus begins drearily replying, " Of her words, in her own 



292 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

handwriting, that she does not wish to regard herself, nor yet 

" when Silas cuts him short with dignity. 

" No, sir ! Remembrances of Our House, of Master George, of 
Aunt Jane, of Uncle Parker, all laid waste ! All offered up sac- 
rifices to the minion of fortune and the worm of the hour ! " 



CHAPTER VIII. 

IN" AVHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCUES. 

The minion of fortune and the worm of the hour, or in less 
cutting language, Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, the Golden Dustman, 
had become as much at home in his eminently aristocratic family 
mansion as he was likely ever to be. He could not but feel that, 
like an eminently aristocratic family cheese, it was much too large 
for his wants, and bred an infinite amount of parasites ; but he 
was content to regard this drawback on his property as a sort of 
perpetual Legacy Duty. He felt the more resigned to it, foras- 
much as Mrs. Boffin enjoyed herself completely, and Miss Bella 
was delighted. 

That young lady was, no doubt, an acquisition to the Boffins. 
She was far too pretty to be unattractive anywhere, and far too 
quick of perception to be below the tone of her new career. 
Whether it improved her heart might be a matter of taste that 
was open to question : but as touching another matter of taste, its 
improvement of her appearance and manner, there could be no 
question whatever. 

And thus it soon came about that Miss Bella began to set 
Mrs. Boffin right ; and even further, that Miss Bella began to feel 
ill at ease, and as it were responsible, when she saw Mrs. Bofiin 
going wrong. Not that so sweet a disposition and so sound a 
nature could ever go very wrong even among the great visiting 
authorities who agreed that the Boffins were " charmingly vulgar " 
(which for certain was not their own case in saying so), but that 
when she made a slip on the social ice on which all the children of 
Podsnappery, with genteel souls to be saved, are required to skate 
in circles, or to slide in long rows, she inevitably tripped Miss 
Bella up (so that young lady felt), and caused her to experience 
great confusion under the glances of the more skilful performers 
engaged in those ice-exercises. 

At Miss Bella's time of life it was not to be expected that she 
should examine herself very closely on the congruity or stability of 
her position in Mr. Boffin's house. And as she had never been 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 293 

sparing of complaints of her old home when she had no other to 
compare it with, so there was no novelty of ingratitude or disdain 
in her very much preferring her new one. 

"Aji invaluable man is Rokesmith," said Mr. Boffin, after some 
two or three months. " But I can't quite make him out." 

Neither could Bella, so she found the subject rather interest- 
ing. 

" He takes more care of my affairs, morning, noon, and night," 
said Mr. Boffin, " than fifty other men put together either could or 
would ; and yet he has ways of his own that are like tying a scaf- 
folding-pole right across the road, and bringing me up short when 
I am almost a- walking arm-in-arm with him." 

" May I ask how so, sir ? " inquired Bella. 

" Well, my dear," said Mr. Boffin, " he won't meet any company 
here, but you. When we have visitors, I should wish him to 
have his regular place at the table like ourselves; but no, he 
won't take it." 

"If he considers himself above it," said Miss Bella., with an 
airy toss of her head, " I should leave him alone." 

" It ain't that, my dear," replied Mr. Boffin, thinking it over. 
" He don't consider himself above it." 

" Perhaps he considers himself beneath it," suggested Bella. 
"If so, he ought to know best." 

"No, my dear; nor it ain't that, neither. No," repeated Mr. 
Boffin, with a shake of his head, after again thinking it over; 
" Rokesmith's a modest man, but he don't consider himself beneath 
it." 

" Then what does he consider, sir ? " asked Bella. 

" Dashed if I know ! " said Mr. Boffin. " It seemed at first as 
if it was only Lightwood that he objected to meet. And now it 
seems to be everybody, except you." 

" Oho ! " thought Miss Bella. " In— deed ! That's it, is it ! " 
For Mr. Mortimer Lightwood had dined there two or three times, 
and she had met him elsewhere, and he had shown her some atten- 
tion. " Rather cool in a Secretary — and Pa's lodger — to make 
me the subject of his jealousy ! " 

That Pa's daughter should be so contemptuous of Pa's lodger was 
odd ; but there were odder anomalies than that in the mind of the 
spoilt girl : the doubly spoilt girl : spoilt first by poverty, and 
then by wealth. Be it this history's part, however, to leave them 
to unravel themselves. 

" A little too much, I think," Miss Bella reflected scornfully, 
" to have Pa's lodger laying claim to me, and keeping eligible peo- 
ple off ! A little too much, indeed, to have the opportunities opened 



294 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

to me by Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, appropriated by a mere Secretary 
and Pa's lodger ! " 

Yet it was not so very long ago that Bella had been fluttered by 
the discovery that this same Secretary and lodger seemed to like 
her. Ah ! but the eminently aristocratic mansion and Mrs. Boffin's 
dressmaker had not come into play then. 

In spite of his seemingly retiring manners, a very intrusive person, 
this Secretary and lodger, in Miss Bella's opinion. Always a light 
in his office-room when we come home from the play or Opera, and 
he always at the carriage-door to hand us out. Always a provoking 
radiance too on Mrs. Boffin's face, and an abominably cheerful re- 
ception of him, as if it were possible seriously to approve what the 
man had in his mind ! 

"You never charge me. Miss Wilfer," said the Secretary, en- 
countering her by chance alone in the great drawing-room, "with 
commissions for home. I shall always be happy to execute any 
commands you may have in that direction." 

"Pray what may you mean, Mr. Rokesmith?" inquired Miss 
Bella, with languidly drooping eyelids. 

" By home ? I mean your father's house at Hollo way." 

She coloured under the retort — so skilfully thrust, that the w^ords 
seemed to be merely a plain answer, given in plain good faith — and 
said, rather more emphatically and sharply : 

"What commissions and commands are you speaking of ? " 

" Only such little words of remembrance as I assume you send 
somehow or other," replied the Secretary, with his former air. " It 
would be a pleasure to me if you would make me the bearer of 
them. As you know, I come and go between the two houses every 
day." 

" You needn't remind me of that, sir." 

She was too quick in this petulant sally against " Pa's lodger ; " 
and she felt that she had been so when she met his quiet look. 

"They don't send many — what was your expression? — words 
of remembrance to me,'' said Bella, making haste to take refuge in 
ill-usage. 

" They frequently ask me about you, and I give them such slight 
intelligence as I can." 

"I hope it's truly given," exclaimed Bella. 

"I hope you cannot doubt it, for it would be very much against 
you, if you could." 

" No, I do not doubt it. I deserve the reproach, which is very 
just indeed. I beg your pardon, Mr. Rokesmith." 

" I should beg you not to do so, but that it shows you to such 
admirable advantage," he replied, with earnestness. " Forgive me ; 




pa's lodgek and pa's daughter. 



296 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

I could not help saying that. To return to what I have digressed 
from, let me add that perhaps they think I report them to you, de- 
liver little messages, and the like. But I forbear to trouble you, 
as you never ask me." 

" I am going, sir," said Bella, looking at him as if he had reproved 
her, "to see them to-morrow." 

"Is that," he asked, hesitating, "said to me, or to them?" 

" To which you please." 

" To both 1 Shall I make it a message ? " 

" You can if you Hke, Mr. Rokesmith. Message or no message, 
I am going to see them to-morrow." 

" Then I will tell them so." 

He lingered a moment, as though to give her the opportunity of 
prolonging the conversation if she wished. As she remained silent, 
he left her. Two incidents of the little interview were felt by 
Miss Bella herself, when alone again, to be very curious. The first 
was, that he unquestionably left her with a penitent air upon her, 
and a penitent feeling in her heart. The second was, that she had 
not had an intention or a thought of going home, until she had 
announced it to him as a settled design. 

" What can I mean by it, or what can he mean by it ? " was her 
mental inquiry. " He has no right to any power over me, and how 
do I come to mind him when I don't care for him 1 " 

Mrs. Boffin, insisting that Bella should make to-morrow's expe- 
dition in the chariot, she went home in great grandeur. Mrs. Wilfer 
and Miss Lavinia had speculated much on the probabilities and im- 
probabilities of her coming in this gorgeous state, and on beholding 
the chariot from the window at which they were secreted to look 
out for it, agreed that it must be detained at the door as long as 
possible, for the mortification and confusion of the neighbours. 
Then they repaired to the usual family room, to receive Miss Bella 
with a becoming show of indifference. 

The family room looked very small and very mean, and the 
downward staircase by which it was attained looked very narrow 
and very crooked. The little house and all its arrangements were a 
poor contrast to the eminently aristocratic dwelling. " I can hardly 
believe," thought Bella, "that I ever did endure life in this place." 

Gloomy majesty on the part of Mrs. Wilfer, and native pertness 
on the part of Lavvy, did not mend the matter. Bella really stood 
in natural need of a little help, and she got none. 

" This," said Mrs. Wilfer, presenting a cheek to be kissed, as 
sympathetic and responsive as the back of the bowl of a spoon, " is 
quite an honour ! You will probably find your sister Lawy grown, 
Bella." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 297 

"Ma," Miss Lavinia interposed, "there can be no objection to 
your being aggravating, because Bella richly deserves it ; but I 
really must request that you will not drag in such ridiculous nonsense 
as my having grown when I am past the growing age." 

"I grew myself," Mrs. Wilfer sternly proclaimed, "after I was 
married." 

"Very well, Ma," returned Lawy, "then I think you had much 
better have left it alone." 

The lofty glare with which the majestic woman received this 
answer, might have embarrassed a less pert opponent, but it had no 
effect upon Lavinia : who, leaving her parent to the enjoyment of 
any amount of glaring that she might deem desirable under the 
circumstances, accosted her sister, undismayed. 

" I suppose you won't consider yourself quite disgraced, Bella, if 
I give you a kiss ? Well ! And how do you do, Bella ? And how 
are your Boffins 1 " 

" Peace ! " exclaimed Mrs. Wilfer. " Hold ! I will not suffer 
this tone of levity." 

" My goodness me ! How are your Spoffins, then 1 " said Lawy, 
"since Ma so very much objects to your Boffins." 

" Impertinent girl ! Minx ! " said Mrs. Wilfer, with dread 
severity. 

" I don't care whether I am a Minx, or a Sphinx," returned 
Lavinia, coolly, tossing her head; "it's exactly the same thing to 
me, and I'd every bit as soon be one as the other ; but I know this 
— I'll not grow after I am married ! " 

" You will not ? You will not 1 " repeated Mrs. Wilfer, solemnly. 

" No, Ma, I will not. Nothing shall induce me." 

Mrs. Wilfer, having waved her gloves, became loftily pathetic. 
" But it was to be expected ; " thus she spake. " A child of mine 
deserts me for the proud and prosperous, and another child of mine 
despises me. It is quite fitting." 

"Ma," Bella struck in, "Mr. and Mrs. Boffin are prosperous, no 
doubt ; but you have no right to say they are proud. You must 
know very well that they are not." 

"In short. Ma," said Lawy, bouncing over to the enemy without 
a word of notice, " you must know very well — or if you don't, more 
shame for you ! — that Mr. and Mrs. Boffin are just absolute per- 
fection." 

" Truly," returned Mrs. Wilfer, courteously receiving the deserter, 
" it would seem that we are required to think so. And this, Lavinia, 
is my reason for objecting to a tone of levity. Mrs. Boffin (of whose 
physiognomy I can never speak with the composure I would desire 
to preserve), and your mother, are not on terms of intimacy It is 



298 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

not for a moment to be supposed that she and her husband dare to 
presume to speak of this family as the Wilfers. I cannot therefore 
condescend to speak of them as the Boffins. No ; for such a tone 
— call it familiarity, levity, equality, or what you will — would imply 
those social interchanges which do not exist. Do I render myself 
intelligible?" 

Without taking the least notice of this inquiry, albeit delivered 
in an imposing and forensic manner, Lavinia reminded her sister, 
" After all, you know, Bella, you haven't told us how your Whatshis- 
names are." 

"I don't want to speak of them here," replied Bella, suppressing 
indignation, and tapping her foot on the floor. " They are much 
too kind and too good to be drawn into these discussions." 

"Why put it so?" demanded Mrs. Wilfer, with biting sarcasm. 
"Why adopt a circuitous form of speech? It is jDolite and it is 
obliging ; but why do it ? Why not openly say that they are much 
too kind and too good for us ? We understand the allusion. AVhy 
disguise the phrase ? " 

"Ma," said Bella, with one beat of her foot, "you are enough to 
drive a saint mad, and so is Lavvy." 

" Unfortunate Lavvy ! " cried Mrs. Wilfer, in a tone of com- 
miseration. " She always comes in for it. My poor child ! " But 
Lavvy, with the suddenness of her former desertion, now bounced 
over to the other enemy ; very sharply remarking, " Don't patronise 
me, Ma, because I can take care of myself" 

" I only wonder," resumed Mrs. Wilfer, directing her observations 
to her elder daughter, as safer on the whole than her utterly un- 
manageable younger, that you found time and inclination to tear 
yourself from Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, and come to see us at all. I 
only wonder that our claims, contending against the superior claims 
of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, had any weight. I feel I ought to be thankful 
for gaining so much, in competition with Mr. and Mrs. Boffin." 
(The good lady bitterly emphasised the first letter of the word Boffin, 
as if it represented her chief objection to the owners of that name, and 
as if she could have borne Doffin, Moffin, or Poffin, much better.) 

" Ma," said Bella, angrily, "you force me to say that I am truly 
sorry I did come home, and that I never will come home again, 
except when poor dear Pa is here. For, Pa is too magnanimous to 
feel envy and spite towards my generous friends, and Pa is delicate 
enough and gentle enough to remember the sort of little claim they 
thought I had upon them, and the unusually trying position in 
which, through no act of my own, I had been placed. And I 
always did love poor dear Pa better than all the rest of you put 
together, and I always do and I always shall ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 299 

Here Bella, deriving no comfort from her charming bonnet and 
her elegant dress, burst into tears. 

"I think, R. W.," cried Mrs. Wilfer, hfting up her eyes and 
apostrophising the air, "that if you were present, it would be a 
trial to your feelings to hear your wife and the mother of your 
family depreciated in your name. But Fate has spared you this, 
R. W., whatever it may have thought proper to inflict upon her ! " 

Here Mrs. Wilfer burst into tears. 

" I hate the Boffins ! " protested Miss Lavinia. " I don't care 
who objects to their being called the Bofiins. I will call 'em the 
Boffins. The Boffins, the Boffins, the Boffins ! And I say they are 
mischief-making Boffins, and I say the Boffins have set Bella against 
me, and I tell the Boffins to their faces : " which was not strictly 
the fact, but the young lady was excited : " that they are de- 
testable Boffins, disreputable Boffins, odious Boffins, beastly Boffins. 
There ! " 

Here Miss Lavinia burst into tears. 

The front garden-gate clanked, and the Secretary was seen coming 
at a brisk pace up the steps. " Leave me to open the door to 
him," said Mrs. Wilfer, rising with stately resignation as she shook 
her head and dried her eyes ; " we have at present no stipendiary 
girl to do so. We have nothing to conceal. If he sees these traces 
of emotion on our cheeks, let him construe them as he may." 

With those words she stalked out. In a few moments she stalked 
in again, proclaiming in her heraldic manner, " Mr. Rokesmith is 
the bearer of a packet for Miss Bella Wilfer." 

Mr. Rokesmith followed close upon his name, and of course saw 
what was amiss. But he discreetly affected to see nothing, and 
addressed Miss Bella. 

"Mr. Boffin intended to have placed this in the carriage for 
you this m,orning. He wished you to have it as a little keepsake 
he had prepared — it is only a purse, Miss Wilfer — but as he was 
disappointed in his fancy, I volunteered to come after you with it." 

Bella took it in her hand, and thanked him. 

" We have been quarrelling here a little, Mr. Rokesmith, but 
not more than we used; you know our agreeable ways among our- 
selves. You ffiid me just going. Good-bye, mamma. Good-bye, 
Lawy ! " And with a kiss for each Miss Bella turned to the door. 
The Secretary would have attended her, but Mrs. Wilfer advancing 
and saying with dignity, " Pardon me ! Permit me to assert my 
natural right to escort my child to the equipage which is in wait- 
ing for her," he begged pardon and gave place. It was a very 
magnificent spectacle indeed, to see Mrs. Wilfer throw open the 
house-door, and loudly demand with extended gloves, " The male 



300 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

domestic of Mrs. Boffin ! " To whom, presenting himself, she deliv- 
ered the brief but majestic charge, " Miss Wilfer. Coming out ! " 
and so delivered her over, like a female Lieutenant of the Tower 
relinquishing a State Prisoner. The eftect of this ceremonial was 
for some quarter of an hour afterwards perfectly paralysing on the 
neighbours, and was much enhanced by the worthy lady airing 
herself for that term in a kind of splendidly serene trance on the 
top step. 

When Bella was seated in the carriage, she opened the little 
packet in her hand. It contained a pretty purse, and the purse 
contained a bank note for fifty pounds. " This shall be a joyful 
surprise for poor dear Pa," said Bella, "and I'll take it myself into 
the City ! " 

As she was uninformed respecting the exact locality of the place 
of business of Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, but knew it to be 
near Mincing Lane, she directed herself to be driven to the corner 
of that darksome spot. Thence she despatched " the male domestic 
of Mrs. Boffin " in search of the counting-house of Chicksey Veneer- 
ing and Stobbles, with a message importing that if R. Wilfer could 
come out, there was a lady waiting who would be glad to speak 
with him. The delivery of these mysterious words from the mouth 
of a footman caused so great an excitement in the counting-house, 
that a youthful scout was instantly appointed to follow Rumty, 
observe the lady, and come in with his report. Nor was the 
agitation by any means diminished, when the scout rushed back 
with the intelligence that the lady was " a slap-up gal in a bang-up 
chariot." 

Rumty himself, with his pen behind his ear under his rusty hat, 
arrived at the carriage-door in a breathless condition, and had been 
fairly lugged into the vehicle by his cravat and embraced almost 
unto choking, before he recognised his daughter. " My dear child ! " 
he then panted, incoherently. " Good gracious me ! What a lovely 
woman you are ! I thought you had been unkind and forgotten 
your mother and sister." 

" I have just been to see them. Pa dear." 

"Oh ! and how — how did you find your mother?" asked R. 
W., dubiously. 

"Very disagreeable, Pa, and so was Lavvy." 

" They are sometimes a little liable to it," observed the patient 
cherub ; " but I hope you made allowances, Bella, my dear ? " 

" No. I was disagreeable too. Pa ; we were all of us disagree- 
able together. But I want you to come and dine with me some- 
where. Pa." 

"Why, my dear, I have already partaken of a — if one might 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 301 

mention such an article in this superb chariot — of a — Saveloy," 
replied R. Wilfer, modestly dropping his voice on the word, as he 
eyed the canary-coloured fittings. 

" Oh ! That's nothing, Pa ! " 

" Truly, it ain't as much as one could sometimes wish it to be, 
my dear," he admitted, drawing his hand across his mouth. " Still, 
when circumstances over which you have no control, interpose ob- 
stacles between yourself and Small Germans, you can't do better 
than bring a contented mind to bear on" — again dropping his 
voice in deference to the chariot — " Saveloys ! " 

" You poor good Pa ! Pa, do, I beg and pray, get leave for the 
rest of the day, and come and pass it with me ! " 

"Well, my dear, I'll cut back and ask for leave." 

" But before you cut back," said Bella, who had already taken 
him by the chin, pulled his hat off, and begun to stick up his hair 
in her old way, " do say that you are sure I am giddy and incon- 
siderate, but have never really slighted you, Pa." 

"My dear, I say it with all my heart. And might I likewise 
observe," her father delicately hinted, with a glance out at window, 
" that perhaps it might be calculated to attract attention, having 
one's hair publicly done by a lovely woman in an elegant turn-out 
in Fenchurch Street ? " 

Bella laughed and put on his hat again. But when his boyish 
figure bobbed away, its shabbiness and cheerful patience smote the 
tears out of her eyes. " I hate that Secretary for thinking it of 
me," she said to herself, "and yet it seems half true ! " 

Back came her father, more like a boy than ever, in his release 
from school. " All right, my dear. Leave given at once. Really 
very handsomely done ! " 

" Now where can we find some quiet place, Pa, in which I can 
wait for you while you go on an errand for me, if I send the car- 
riage away 1 " 

It demanded cogitation. "You see, my dear," he explained, 
"you really have become such a very lovely woman, that it ought 
to be a very quiet place." At length he suggested, "Near the 
garden up by the Trinity House on Tower Hill." So, they were 
driven there, and Bella dismissed the chariot ; sending a pencilled 
note by it to Mrs. Boffin, that she was with her father. 

" Now, Pa, attend to what I am going to say, and promise and 
vow to be obedient." 

"I promise and vow, my dear." 

" You ask no questions. You take this purse ; you go to the 
nearest place where they keep everything of the very very best, 
ready made ; you buy and put on, the most beautiful suit of clothes, 



302 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

the most beautiful hat, and the most beautiful pair of bright boots 
(patent leather, Pa, mind !) that are to be got for money ; and you 
come back to me." 

"But, my dear Bella " 

" Take care. Pa ! " pointing her forefinger at him, merrily. 
"You have promised and vowed. It's perjury, you know." 

There was water in the foolish little fellow's eyes, but she kissed 
them dry (though her own were wet), and he bobbed away again. 
After half an hour he came back, so brilliantly transformed, that 
Bella was obliged to walk round him in ecstatic admiration twenty 
times, before she could draw her arm through his, and delightedly 
squeeze it. 

" Now, Pa," said Bella, hugging him close, " take this lovely 
woman out to dinner." 

" Where shall we go, my dear ? " 

" Greenwich ! " said Bella, valiantly. " And be sure you treat 
this lovely woman with everything of the best." 

While they were going along to take boat, " Don't you wish, my 
dear," said R. W., timidly, " that your mother was here ? " 

" No, I don't. Pa, for I like to have you all to myself to-day. 
I was always your little favourite at home, and you were always 
mine. We have run away together often, before now ; haven't 
we. Pa?" 

" Ah, to be sure we have ! Many a Sunday when your mother 
was — was a little liable to it," repeating his former delicate expres- 
sion after pausing to cough. 

"Yes, and I am afraid I was seldom or never as good as I ought 
to have been. Pa. I made you carry me, over and over again, when 
you should have made me walk ; and I often drove you in harness, 
when you would much rather have sat down and read your news- 
paper : didn't 1 1 " 

" Sometimes, sometimes. But Lor, what a child you were ! 
What a companion you were ! " 

" Companion? That's just what I want to be to-day. Pa." 

" You are safe to succeed, my love. Your brotlicrs and sisters 
have all in their turns been companions to me, to a certain extent, 
but only to a certain extent. Your mother has, throughout life, 
been a companion that any man might — might look up to — and 
— and commit the sayings of, to memory — and — form himself 
upon — if he " 

"If he liked the model?" suggested Bella. 

" We-ell, ye-es," he returned, thinking about it, not quite satisfied 
with the phrase : "or perhaps I might say, if it was in him. Sup- 
posing, for instance, that a man wanted to be always marching, he 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 303 

would find your mother an inestimable companion. But if he had 
any taste for walking, or should wish at any time to break into a 
trot, he might sometimes find it a little difficult to keep step with 
your mother. Or take it this way, Bella," he added, after a moment's 
reflection : " Supposing that a man had to go through life, we won't 
say with a companion, but we'll say to a tune. Very good. Sup- 
posing that the tune allotted to him was the Dead March in Saul. 
Well. It would be a very suitable tune for particular occasions — 
none better — but it would be difficult to keep time with in the 
ordinary run of domestic transactions. For instance, if he took his 
supper after a hard day, to the Dead March in Saul, his food might 
be likely to sit heavy on him. Or, if he was at any time inclined 
to relieve his mind by singing a comic song or dancing a hornpipe, 
and was obliged to do it to the Dead March in Saul, he might find 
himself put out in the execution of his lively intentions." 

" Poor Pa!" thought Bella, as she hung upon his arm. 

"Now, what I will say for you, my dear," the cherub pursued 
mildly and without a notion of complaining, "is, that you are so 
adaptable. So adaptable." 

"Indeed I am afraid I have shown a wretched temper, Pa. I am 
afraid I have been very complaining, and very capricious. I sel- 
dom or never thought of it before. But when I sat in the carriage 
just now and saw you coming along the pavement, I reproached 
myself." 

"Not at all, my dear. Don't speak of such a thing." 

A happy and a chatty man was Pa in his new clothes that day. 
Take it for all in all, it was perhaps the happiest day he had ever 
known in his life ; not even excepting that on which his heroic 
partner had approached the nuptial altar to the tune of the Dead 
March in Saul. 

The little expedition down the river was delightful, and the little 
room overlooking the river into which they were shown for dinner 
was delightful. Everything was delightful. The park was delight- 
ful, the punch was delightful, the dishes of fish were delightful, the 
wine was delightful. Bella was more delightful than any other 
item in the festival ; drawing Pa out in the gayest manner ; making 
a point of always mentioning herself as the lovely woman ; stim- 
ulating Pa to order things, by declaring that the lovely woman 
insisted on being treated with them ; and in short causing Pa to be 
quite enraptured with the consideration that he ivas the Pa of such 
a charming daughter. 

And then, as they sat looking at the ships and steamboats mak- 
ing their way to the sea with the tide that was running down, 
the lovely woman imagined all sorts of voyages for herself and Pa. 



304 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Now, Pa, in the character of owner of a himbering square-sailed col- 
lier, was tacking away to Newcastle, to fetch black diamonds to 
make his fortune with ; now, Pa was going to China in that hand- 
some three-masted ship, to bring home opium, with which he would 
for ever cut out Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, and to bring 
home silks and shawls without end for the decoration of his charm- 
ing daughter. Now, John Harmon's disastrous fate was all a dream, 
and he had come home and found the lovely woman just the article 
for him, and the lovely woman had found him just the article for 
her, and they were going away on a trip, in their gallant bark, to 
look after their vines, with streamers flying at all points, a band 
playing on deck, and Pa established in the great cabin. Now, 
John Harmon was consigned to his grave again, and a merchant 
of immense wealth (name unknown) had courted and married the 
lovely woman, and he was so enormously rich that everything you 
saw upon the river sailing or steaming belonged to him, and he 
kept a perfect fleet of yachts for pleasure, and that little impudent 
yacht which you saw over there, with the great white sail, was 
called The Bella, in honour of his wife, and she held her state 
aboard Avhen it pleased her, like a modern Cleopatra. Anon, there 
would embark in that troop-ship when she got to Gravesend, a 
mighty general, of large property (name also unknown), who wouldn't 
hear of going to victory without his wife, and whose wife was the 
lovely woman, and she was destined to become the idol of all the 
red coats and blue jackets alow and aloft. And then again : you 
saw tliat ship being towed out by a steam-tug ? Well ! where did 
you suppose she vras going to ? She was going among the coral 
reefs and cocoa-nuts and all that sort of thing, and she was char- 
tered for a fortunate individual of the name of Pa (himself on board, 
and much respected by all hands), and she was going, for his sole 
profit and advantage, to fetch a cargo of sweet-smelling woods, the 
most beautiful that ever were seen, and the most profitable that 
never were heard of, and her cargo wovdd be a great fortune, as 
indeed it ought to be : the lovely woman who had purchased her 
and fitted her expressly for this voyage, being married to an Indian 
Prince, who was a Something-or-Other, and who wore Cashmere 
shawls all over himself, and diamonds and emeralds blazing in his 
turban, and was beautifully coff'ee-coloured and excessively devoted, 
thougli a little too jealous. Thus Bella ran on merrily, in a manner 
perfectly enchanting to Pa, who was as willing to put his head into 
the Sultan's tub of water as the beggar-boys below the window 
were to put their heads in the mud. 

" I suppose, my dear," said Pa after dinner, " we may come to 
the conclusion at home, that we have lost you for good ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 305 

Bella shook her head. Didn't know. Couldn't say. All she 
was able to report was, that she was most handsomely supplied 
with everything she could possibly want, and that whenever she 
hinted at leaving Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, they wouldn't hear of it. 

"And now. Pa," pursued Bella, "I'll make a confession to you. 
I am the most mercenary little wretch that ever lived in the 
world." 

"I should hardly have thought it of you, my dear," returned her 
father, first glancing at himself, and then at the dessert. 

"I understand what you mean. Pa, but it's not that. It's not 
that I care for money to keep as money, but I do care so much for 
what it will buy ! " 

"Really I think most of us do," returned R. W. 

"But not to the dreadful extent that I do. Pa. O-o!" cried 
Bella, screwing the exclamation out of herself with a twist of her 
dimpled chin. "I am so mercenary!" 

Witli a wistful glance R. W. said, in default of having anything 
better to say: "About when did you begin to feel it coming on, my 
dear?" 

" That's it. Pa. That's the terrible part of it. When I was at 
home, and only knew what it was to be poor, I grumbled, but didn't 
so much mind. When I was at home expecting to be rich, I thought 
vaguely of all the great things I would do. But when I had been 
disappointed of my splendid fortune, and came to see it from day 
to tlay in other hands, and to have before my eyes what it could 
really do, then I became the mercenary little wretch I am." 

" It's your fancy, my dear." 

" I can assure you it's nothing of the sort, Pa ! " said Bella, 
nodding at him, with her very pretty eyebrows raised as high as 
they would go, and looking comically frightened. "It's a fact. 
I am always avariciously scheming." 

" Lor ! But how ? " 

" I'll tell you, Pa. I don't mind telling you^ because we have 
always been favourites of each other's, and because you are not 
like a Pa, but more like a sort of a younger brother with a dear 
venerable chubbiness on him. And besides," added Bella, laugh- 
ing as she pointed a rallying finger at his ftice, "because I have 
got you in my power. This is a secret expedition. If ever you 
tell of me, I'll tell of you. I'll tell Ma that you dined at 
Greenwich." 

"Well; seriously, my dear," observed R. W., with some trepi- 
dation of manner, " it might be as well not to mention it." 

" Aha ! " laughed Bella. " I knew you wouldn't like it, sir ! 
So you keep my confidence, and I'll keep yours. But betray the 



306 OUR MUTUAL ERIEND. 

lovely woman, and you shall find her a serpent. Now, you may 
give me a kiss, Pa, and I should like to give your hair a turn, 
because it has been dreadfully neglected in my absence." 

R. W. submitted his head to the operator, and the operator 
went on talking ; at the same time putting separate locks of his 
hair through a curious process of being smartly rolled over her 
two revolving forefingers, which were then suddenly pulled out of 
it in opposite lateral directions. On each of these occasions the 
patient winced and winked. 

" I have made up my mind that I must have money. Pa. I 
feel that I can't beg it, borrow it, or steal it; and so I have 
resolved that I must marry it." 

R. W. cast up his eyes towards her, as well as he could under 
the operating circumstances, and said in a tone of remonstrance, 
"My de-ar Bella." 

"Have resolved, I say, Pa, that to get money I must marry 
money. In consequence of which, I am always looking out for 
money to captivate." 

" My de-a-r Bella ! " 

" Yes, Pa, that is the state of the case. If ever there was a 
mercenary plotter whose thoughts and designs were always in her 
mean occupation, I am the amiable creature. But I don't care. 
I hate and detest being poor, and I won't be poor if I can marry 
money. Now you are deliciously fluffy. Pa, and in a state to 
astonish the waiter and pay the bill." 

" But, my dear Bella, this is quite alarming at your age." 

"I told you so, Pa, but you wouldn't believe it," returned Bella, 
with a pleasant childish gravity. " Isn't it shocking 1 " 

" It would be quite so, if you fully knew what you said, my 
dear, or meant it." 

" Well, Pa, I can only tell you that I mean nothing else. Talk 
to me of love ! " said Bella, contemptuously : though her face and 
figure certainly rendered the subject no incongruous one. " Talk 
to me of fiery dragons ! But talk to me of poverty and wealth, 
and there indeed we touch upon realities." 

" My De-ar, this is becoming Awful — " her father was emphati- 
cally beginning : when she stopped him. 

" Pa, tell me. Did t/ou marry money 1 " 

" You know I didn't, my dear." 

Bella hummed the Dead March in Saul, and said, after all it 
signified very little ! But seeing him look grave and downcast, 
she took him round the neck and kissed him back to cheerfulness 
again. 

" I didn't mean that last touch, Pa ; it was only said in joke. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 307 

Now mind ! You are not to tell of me, and I'll not tell of you. 
And more than that; I promise to have no secrets from you, 
Pa, and you may make certain that, whatever mercenary things go 
on, I shall always tell you all about them in strict confidence." 

Fain to be satisfied with this concession from the lovely woman, 
R. W. rang the bell, and paid the bill. "Now, all the rest of 
this. Pa," said Bella, rolling up the purse when they were alone 
again, hammering it small with her little fist on the table, and 
cramming it into one of the pockets of his new waistcoat, " is 
for you, to buy presents with for them at home, and to pay bills 
with, and to divide as you like, and spend exactly as you think 
proper. Last of all take notice. Pa, that it's not the fruit of any 
avaricious scheme. Perhaps if it was, your little mercenary 
wretch of a daughter wouldn't make so free with it." 

After which she tugged at his coat with both hands, and 
pulled him all askew in buttoning that garment over the precious 
waistcoat pocket, and then tied her dimples into her bonnet- 
strings in a very knowing way, and took him back to London. 
Arrived at Mr. Boffin's door, she set him with his back against it, 
tenderly took him by the ears as convenient handles for her purpose, 
and kissed him until he knocked muffled double knocks at the 
door with the back of his head. That done, she once more 
reminded him of their compact and gaily parted from him. 

Not so gaily, however, but that tears filled her eyes as he went 
away down the dark street. Not so gaily, but that she several times 
said, " Ah, poor little Pa ! Ah, poor dear struggling shabby little 
Pa ! " before she took heart to knock at the door. Not so gaily, but 
that the brilliant furniture seemed to stare her out of countenance 
as if it insisted on being compared with the dingy furniture at 
home. Not so gaily, but that she fell into very low spirits sit- 
ting late in her own room, and very heartily wept, as she wished, 
now that the deceased old John Harmon had never made a will 
about her, now that the deceased young John Harmon had lived to 
marry her. " Contradictory things to wish," said Bella, " but my life 
and fortunes are so contradictory altogether that what can I 
expect myself to be ! " 



308 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

CHAPTER IX. 

IN AVHICH THE OEPHAN MAKES HIS WILL. 

The Secretary, working in the Dismal Swamp betimes next morn- 
ing, was informed that a youth waited in the hall who gave the 
name of Sloppy. The footman who communicated this intelli- 
gence made a decent pause before uttering the name, to express 
that it was forced on his reluctance by the youth in question, and 
that if the youth had had the good sense and good taste to inherit 
some other name it would have spared the feelings of him the 
bearer. 

"Mrs. Boffin will be very well pleased," said the Secretary in 
a perfectly composed way. " Show him in." 

Mr. Sloppy being introduced, remained close to the door : 
revealing in various parts of his form many surprising, confound- 
ing, and incomprehensible buttons. 

" I am glad to see you," said John Rokesmith, in a cheerful 
tone of welcome. " I have been expecting you." 

Sloppy explained that he had meant to come before, but that 
the Orphan (of whom he made mention as Our Johnny) had been 
ailing, and he had waited to report him well. 

" Then he is well now 1 " said the Secretary. 

"No he ain't," said Sloppy. 

Mr. Sloppy having shaken his head to a considerable extent, 
proceeded to remark, that he thought Johnny "must have took 
'em from the Minders." Being asked what he meant, he answered, 
them that come out upon him and partickler his chest. Being re- 
quested to explain himself, he stated that there was some of 'em 
wot you couldn't kiver with a sixpence. Pressed to fall back upon 
a nominative case, he opined that they wos about as red as ever 
red could be. "But as long as they strikes out'ards, sir," con- 
tinued Sloppy, "they ain't so much. It's their striking in'ards 
that's to be kep off." 

John Rokesmith hoped the child had had medical attendance 1 
Oh yes, said Sloppy, he had been took to the doctor's shop once. 
And what did the doctor call it ? Rokesmith asked him. After 
some perplexed reflection. Sloppy answered, brightening, "He 
called it something as wos wery long for spots." Rokesmith sug- 
gested measles. "No," said Sloppy, with confidence, "ever so 
much longer than them, sir ! " (Mr. Sloppy was elevated by this 
fact, and seemed to consider that it reflected credit on the poor 
little patient.) 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 309 

"Mrs. Boffin will be sorry to hear this," said Rokesmith. 

" Mrs. Higden said so, sir, when she kept it from her, hoping as 
Our Johnny would work round." 

- " But I hope he will ? " said Rokesmith, with a quick turn upon 
the messenger. 

"I hope so," answered Sloppy. "It all depends on their strik- 
ing in'ards." He then went on to say that whether Johnny had 
" took 'era " from the Minders, or whether the Minders had " took 
'em" from Johnny, the Minders had been sent home and had "got 
'em." Furthermore, that Mrs. Higden's days and nights being de- 
voted to Our Johnny, who was never out of her lap, the whole of 
the mangling arrangements had devolved upon himself, and he had 
had "rayther a tight time." The ungainly piece of honesty 
beamed and blushed as he said it, quite enraptured with the 
remembrance of having been serviceable. 

"Last night," said Sloppy, "when I was a-turning at the wheel 
pretty late, the mangle seemed to go like Our Johnny's breathing. 
It begun beautiful, then as it went out it shook a little and got un- 
steady, then as it took the turn to come home it had a rattle-like 
and lumbered a bit, then it come smooth, and so it went on till I 
scarce know'd which was mangle and which was Our Johnny. 
Nor our Johnny, he scarce know'd either, for sometimes when the 
mangle lumbers he says, ' Me choking. Granny ! ' and Mrs. Higden 
holds him up in her lap and says to me, ' Bide a bit, Sloppy,' and 
we all stops together. And when our Johnny gets his breathing 
again, I turns again, and we all goes on together." 

Sloppy had gradually expanded with his description into a stare 
and a vacant grin. He now contracted, being silent, into a half- 
repressed gush of tears, and, under pretence of being heated, drew 
the under part of his sleeve across his eyes with a singularly 
awkward, laborious, and roundabout smear. 

" This is unfortunate," said Rokesmith. "I must go and break 
it to Mrs. Boffin. Stay you here. Sloppy." 

Sloppy stayed there, staring at the pattern of the paper on the 
wall, until the Secretary and Mrs. Boffin came back together. 
And with Mrs. Boffin was a young lady (Miss Bella Wilfer by 
name) who was better worth staring at, it occurred to Sloppy, 
than the best of wall-papering. 

" Ah, my poor dear pretty little John Harmon ! " exclaimed 
Mrs. Boffin. 

" Yes mum," said the sympathetic Sloppy. 

" You don't think he is in a veiy, very bad way, do you 1 " asked 
the pleasant creature with her wholesome cordiality. 

Put upon his good faith, and finding it in collision with his in- 



310 . OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

clinations, Sloppy threw back his head and uttered a mellifluous 
howl, rounded off with a sniff. 

"So bad as that!" cried Mrs. Boffin. "And Betty Higden 
not to tell me of it sooner ! " 

"I think she might have been mistrustful, mum," answered 
Sloppy, hesitating. 

" Of what, for Heaven's sake ? " 

" I think she might have been mistrustful, mum," returned 
Sloppy with submission, "of standing in Our Johnny's light. 
There's so much trouble in illness, and so much expense, and she's 
seen such a lot of its being objected to." 

"But she never can have thought," said Mrs. Boffin, "that I 
would grudge the dear child anything ? " 

" No, mum, but she might have thought (as a habit-like) of its 
standing in Johnny's light, and might have tried to bring him 
through it unbeknownst." 

Sloppy knew his ground well. To conceal herself in sickness, 
like a lower animal ; to creep out of sight and coil herself away 
and die, had become this woman's instinct. To catch up in her 
arms the sick child who was dear to her, and hide it as if it were 
a criminal, and keep off all ministration but such as her own 
ignorant tenderness and patience could supply, had become this 
woman's idea of maternal love, fidelity, and duty. The shameful 
accounts we read, every week in the Christian year, my lords and 
gentlemen and honourable boards, the infamous records of small 
official inhumanity, do not pass by the people as they pass by us. 
And hence these irrational, blind, and obstinate prejudices, so as- 
tonishing to our magnificence, and having no more reason in them 

— God save the Queen and Con-found their politics — no, than 
smoke has in coming from fire ! 

" It's not a right place for the poor child to stay in," said 
Mrs. Boffin. "Tell us, dear Mr. Kokesmith, what to do for the 
best." 

He had already thought what to do, and the consultation was 
very short. He could pave the way, he said, in half an hour, and 
then they would go down to Brentford. " Pray take me," said 
Bella. Therefore a carriage was ordered, of capacity to take them 
all, and in the meantime Sloppy was regaled, feasting alone in the 
Secretary's room, with a complete realization of that fairy vision 

— meat, beer, vegetables, and pudding. In consequence of which 
his buttons became more importunate of public notice than before, 
with the exception of two or three about the region of the waist- 
band, which modestly withdrew into a creasy retirement. 

Punctual to the time, appeared the carriage and the Secretary. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 311 

He sat on the box, and Mr. Sloppy graced the rumble. So, to 
the Three Magpies as before : where Mrs. Boffin and Miss Bella 
were handed out, and whence they all went on foot to Mrs. Betty 
Higden's. 

But, on the way down, they had stopped at a toy-shop, and had 
bought that noble charger, a description of whose points and trap- 
pings had on the last occasion conciliated the then worldly-minded 
orphan, and also a Noah's ark, and also a yellow bird with an arti- 
ficial voice in him, and also a miUtary doll so well dressed that if 
he had only been of life-size his brother-officers in the Guards might 
never have found him out. Bearing these gifts, they raised the 
latch of Betty Higden's door, and saw her sitting in the dimmest 
and furthest corner with poor Johnny in her lap. 

"And how's my boy, Betty?" asked Mrs. Boffin, sitting down 
beside her. 

"He's bad! He's bad!" said Betty. "I begin to be afeerd 
he'll not be yours any more than mine. All others belonging to 
him have gone to the Power and the Glory, and I have a mind 
that they're drawing him to them — leading him away." 
"No, no, no," said Mrs. Boffin. 

" I don't know why else he clenches his little hand as if it had 
hold of a finger that I can't see. Look at it," said Betty, opening 
the wrappers in which the flushed child lay, and showing his small 
right hand lying closed upon his breast. "It's always so. It 
don't mind me." 
"Is he asleep?" 

" No, I think not. You're not asleep, my Johnny ? " 
" No," said Johnny, with a quiet air of pity for himself, and 
without opening his eyes. 

'•' Here's the lady, Johnny. And the horse." 
Johnny could bear the lady, with complete indiff'erence, but not 
the horse. Opening his heavy eyes, he slowly broke into a smile on 
beholding that splendid phenomenon, and wanted to take it in his 
arms. As it was much too big, it was put upon a chair where he 
could hold it by the mane and contemplate it. Which he soon 
forgot to do. 

But Johnny murmuring something with his eyes closed, and Mrs. 
Boffin not knowing what, old Betty bent her ear to listen and took 
pains to understand. Being asked by her to repeat what he had 
said, he did so two or three times, and then it came out that he 
must have seen more than they supposed when he looked up to see 
the horse, for the murmur was, " Who is the boofer lady 1 " Now, 
the boofer, or beautiful, lady was Bella ; and whereas this notice 
from the poor baby would have touched her of itself, it was ren- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 313 

dered more pathetic by the late melting of her heart to her poor 
little father, and their joke about the lovely woman. So Bella's 
behaviour was very tender and very natural when she kneeled on the 
brick floor to clasp the child, and when the child, with a child's 
admiration of what is young and pretty, fondled the boofer lady. 

" Now, my good dear Betty," said Mrs. Bofiin, hoping that she 
saw her opportunity, and laying her hand persuasively on her arm ; 
" we have come to remove Johnny from this cottage to where he 
can be taken better care of." 

Instantly, and before another word could be spoken, the old 
woman started up with blazing eyes, and rushed at the door with 
the sick child. 

" Stand away from me, every one of ye ! " she cried out wildly. 
"I see what ye mean now. Let me go my way, all of ye. I'd 
sooner kill the Pretty, and kill myself." 

"Stay, stay!" said Eokesmith, soothing her. "You don't 
understand." 

" I understand too well. I know too much about it, sir. I've 
run from it too many a year. No ! Never for me, nor for the 
child, while there's water enough in England to cover us ! " 

The terror, the shame, the passion of horror and repugnance, 
firing the worn face and perfectly maddening it, would have been a 
quite terrible sight, if embodied in one old fellow-creature alone. 
Yet it " crops up " — as our slang goes — my lords and gentlemen 
and honourable boards, in other fellow-creatures, rather frequently ! 
" It's been chasing me all my life, but it shall never take me nor 
mine alive ! " cried old Betty. " I've done with ye. I'd have 
fastened door and window and starved out, afore I'd ever have let 
ye in, if I had known what ye came for ! " 

But, catching sight of Mrs. Boffin's wholesome face, she 
relented, and crouching down by the door and bending over her 
burden to hush it, said humbly : " Maybe my fears has put me 
wrong. If they have so, tell me, and the good Lord forgive me ! 
I'm quick to take this fright, I know, and my head is summ'at light 
with wearying and watching." 

" There, there, there ! " returned Mrs. Boffin. " Come, come ! 
Say no more of it, Betty. It was a mistake, a mistake. Any one 
of us might have made it in your place, and felt just as you do." 

"The Lord bless ye ! " said the old woman, stretching out her 
hand. 

"Now, see, Betty," pursued the sweet compassionate soul, hold- 
ing the hand kindly, " what I really did mean, and what I should 
have begvm by saying out, if I had only been a little wiser and 
handier. We want to move Johnny to a place where there are 



314 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

none but children ; a place set up on purpose for sick children ; 
where the good doctors and nurses pass their lives with children, 
talk to none but children, touch none but children, comfort and 
cure none but children." 

" Is there really such a place ? " asked the old woman, with a 
gaze of wonder. 

"Yes, Betty, on my word, and you shall see it. If my home 
was a better place for the dear boy, I'd take him to it : but indeed 
indeed it's not." 

"You shall take him," returned Betty, fervently kissing the 
comforting hand, " where you will, my deary. I am not so hard, 
but that I believe your face and voice, and I will, as long as I can 
see and hear." 

This victory gained, Rokesmith made haste to profit by it, for 
he saw how wofully time had been lost. He dispatched Sloppy to 
bring the carriage to the door ; caused the child to be carefully 
wrapped up; bade old Betty get her bonnet on; collected the 
toys, enabling the little fellow to- comprehend that his treasures 
were to be transported with him ; and had all things prepared so 
easily that they were ready for the carriage as soon as it appeared, and 
in a minute afterwards were on their way. Sloppy they left behind, 
relieving his overcharged breast with a paroxysm of mangling. 

At the Children's Hospital, the gallant steed, the Noah's ark, 
the yellow bird, and the officer in the Guards, were made as welcome 
as their child-owner. But the doctor said aside to Rokesmith, 
" This should have been days ago. Too late ! " 

However, they were all carried up into a fresh airy room, and 
there Johnny came to himself, out of a sleep or a swoon or what- 
ever it was, to find himself lying in a little quiet bed, with a little 
platform over his breast, on which were already arranged, to give 
him heart and urge him to cheer up, the Noah's ark, the noble 
steed, and the yellow bird, with the officer in the Guards doing 
duty over the whole, quite as much to the satisfaction of his coun- 
try as if he had been upon Parade. And at the bed's head was a 
coloured picture beautiful to see, representing as it were another 
Johnny seated on the knee of some Angel surely who loved little 
children. And, marvellous fact, to lie and stare at : Johnny had 
become one of a little family, all in little quiet beds (except two 
playing dominoes in little arm-chairs at a little table on the hearth) : 
and on all the little beds were little platforms wliereon were to be 
seen dolls' houses, woolly dogs with mechanical barks in them not 
very dissimilar from the artificial voice pervading the bowels of the 
yellow bird, tin armies, Moorish tumblers, wooden tea things, and 
the riches of the earth. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 315 

As Johnny murmured something in his placid admiration, the 
ministering woman at his bed's head asked him what he said. 
It seemed that he wanted to know whether all these were brothers 
and sisters of his ? So they told him yes. It seemed then, that 
he wanted to know whether God had brought them all together 
there ? So they told him yes again. They made out then, that 
he wanted to know whether they would all get out of pain ? So 
they answered yes to that question likewise, and made him under- 
stand that the reply included himself. 

Johnny's powers of sustaining conversation were as yet so very 
imperfectly developed, even in a state of health, that in sickness 
they were little more than monosyllabic. But, he had to be 
washed and tended, and remedies were applied, and though those 
offices were far, far more skilfully and lightly done than ever anything 
had been done for him in his little life, so rough and short, they 
would have hurt and tired him but for an amazing circumstance 
which laid hold of his attention. This was no less than the 
appearance on his own little platform in pairs, of All Creation, on 
its way into his own particular ark : the elephant leading, and the 
fly, with a diffident sense of his size, politely bringing up the rear. 
A very little brother lying in the next bed with a broken leg, was 
so enclianted by this spectacle that his delight exalted its enthralling 
interest ; and so came rest and sleep. 

"I see you are not afraid to leave the dear child here, Betty," 
whispered Mrs. Boffin. 

"No, ma'am. Most willingly, most thankfully, with all my 
heart and soul." 

So they kissed him, and left him there, and old Betty was to 
come back early in the morning, and nobody but Rokesmith knew 
for certain how that the doctor had said, " This should have been 
days ago. Too late ! " 

But, Rokesmith knowing it, and knowing that his bearing it in 
mind would be acceptable thereafter to that good woman who had 
been the only light in the childhood of desolate John Harmon dead 
and gone, resolved that late at night he would go back to the bed- 
side of John Harmon's namesake, and see how it fared with him. 

The family whom God had brought together were not all asleep, 
but were all quiet. From bed to bed, a light womanly tread and 
a pleasant fresh face passed in the silence of the night. A little 
head would lift itself up into the softened light here and there, to 
be kissed as the flxce went by — for these little patients are very 
loving — and would then submit itself to be composed to rest again. 
The mite with the broken leg was restless, and moaned ; but after 
a while turned his face towards Johnny's bed, to fortify himself 



316 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

with a view of the ark, and fell asleep. Over most of the beds, 
the toys were yet grouped as the children had left them when they 
last laid themselves down, and, in their innocent grotesqueness and 
incongruity, they might have stood for the children's dreams. 

The doctor came in too, to see how it fared with Johnny. And 
he and Rokesmith stood together, looking down with compassion 
on him. 

" What is it, Johnny ? " Rokesmith was the questioner, and put 
an arm round the poor baby as he made a struggle. 

" Him ! " said the little fellow. " Those ! " 

The doctor was quick to understand children, and, taking the 
horse, the ark, the yellow bird, and the man in the Guards, from 
Johnny's bed, softly placed them on that of his next neighbour, 
the mite with the broken leg. 

With a weary and yet a pleased smile, and with an action as if 
he stretched his little figure out to rest, the child heaved his body 
on the sustaining arm, and seeking Rokesmitb's face with his lips, 
said : 

"A kiss for the boofer lady." 

Having now bequeathed all he had to dispose of, and arranged 
his affairs in this world, Johnny, thus speaking, left it. 



CHAPTER X. 

A SUCCESSOR. 

Some of the Reverend Frank Milvey's brethren had found them- 
selves exceedingly uncomfortable in their minds, because they were 
required to bury the dead too hopefully. But, the Reverend Frank, 
inclining to the belief that they were required to do one or two 
other things (say out of nine-and-thirty) calculated to trouble their 
consciences rather more if they would think as much about them, 
held his peace. 

Indeed, the Reverend Frank Milvey was a forbearing man, who 
noticed many sad warps and blights in the vineyard wherein he 
worked, and did not profess that they made him savagely wise. 
He only learned that the more he himself knew, in his little limited 
human way, the better he could distantly imagine what Omniscience 
might know. 

Wherefore, if the Reverend Frank had had to read the words 
that troubled some of his brethren, and profitably touched innumer- 
able hearts, in a worse case than Johnny's, he would have done so 
out of the pity and humility of his soul. Reading them over 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 317 

Johnny, he thought of his own six children, but not of his poverty, 
and read them with dimmed eyes. And very seriously did he and 
his bright little wife, who had been listening, look down into the 
small grave and walk home arm-in-arm. 

There was grief in the aristocratic house, and there was joy in 
the Bower. Mr. Wegg argued, if an orphan were wanted, was he 
not an orphan himself, and could a better be desired ? And why 
go beating about Brentford bushes, seeking orphans forsooth who 
had established no claims upon you and made no sacrifices for you, 
when here was an orphan ready to your hand who had given up 
in your cause. Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and 
Uncle Parker. 

Mr. Wegg chuckled, consequently, when he heard the tidings. 
Nay, it was afterwards aflirmed by a witness who shall at present 
be nameless, that in the seclusion of the Bower he poked out his 
wooden leg, in the stage-ballet manner, and executed a taunting or 
triumphant pirouette on the genuine leg remaining to him. 

John Rokesmith's manner towards Mrs. Boffin at this time, was 
more the manner of a young man towards a mother, than that of 
a Secretary towards his employer's wife. It had always been 
marked by a subdued affectionate deference that seemed to have 
sprung up on the very day of his engagement : whatever was odd 
in her dress or her ways had seemed to have no oddity for him ; 
he had sometimes borne a quietly amused face in her company, but 
still it had seemed as if the pleasure her genial temper and radiant 
nature yielded him, could have been quite as naturally expressed 
in a tear as in a smile. The completeness of his sympathy with 
her fimcy for having a little John Harmon to protect and rear, he 
had shown in every act and word, and now that the kind fancy 
was disappointed, he treated it with a manly tenderness and respect 
for which she could hardly thank him enough. 

"But I do thank you, Mr. Rokesmith," said Mrs. Boffin, "and 
I thank you most kindly. You love children." 

*' I hope everybody does." 

" They ought," said Mrs. Boffin ; " but we don't all of us do 
what we ought ; do us ? " 

John Rokesmith replied, " Some among us supply the shortcom- 
ings of the rest. You have loved children well, Mr. Boffin has 
told me." 

" Not a bit better than he has, but that's his way ; he puts all 
the good upon me. You speak rather sadly, Mr. Rokesmith." 

"Do I?" 

"It sounds to me so. Were you one of many children?" 

He shook his head. 



318 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"An only child?" 

" No, there was another. Dead long ago." 

"Father or mother alive?" 

"Dead." 

" And the rest of your relations ? " 

" Dead — if I ever had any living, I never heard of any." 

At this point of the dialogue Bella came in with a light step. 
She paused at the door a moment, hesitating whether to remain or 
retire ; perplexed by finding that she was not observed. 

"Now, don't mind an old lady's talk," said Mrs. Bofl&n, "but 
tell me. Are you quite sure, Mr. Rokesmith, that you have never 
had a disappointment in love ? " 

" Quite sure. Why do you ask me ? " 

"Why, for this reason. Sometimes you have a kind of kept- 
down manner with you, which is not like your age. You can't be 
thirty ? " 

" I am not yet thirty." 

Deeming it high time to make her presence known, Bella coughed 
here to attract attention, begged pardon, and said she would go, 
fearing that she interrupted some matter of business. 

"No, don't go," rejoined Mrs. Botfin, "because we are coming 
to business, instead of having begun it, and you belong to it as 
much now, my dear Bella, as I do. But I want my Noddy to 
consult with us. Would somebody be so good as find my Noddy 
for me ? " 

Rokesmith departed on that errand, and presently returned 
accompanied by Mr. Boffin at his jog-trot. Bella felt a little vague 
trepidation as to the subject-matter of this same consultation, until 
Mrs. Boffin announced it. 

"Now, you come and sit by me, my dear," said that worthy 
soul, taking her comfortable place on a large ottoman in the centre 
of the room, and drawing her arm through Bella's ; " and Noddy, 
you sit here, and Mr. Rokesmith you sit there. Now, you see, 
what I want to talk about is this. Mr. and Mrs. Milvey have 
sent me the kindest note possible (which Mr. Rokesmith just now 
read to me out loud, for I ain't good at handwritings), offering to 
find me another little child to name and educate and bring up. 
Well. This has set me thinking." 

("And she is a steam-ingein at it," murmured Mr. Boffin, in an 
admiring parenthesis, " when she once begins. It mayn't be so 
easy to start her; but once started, she's a ingein.") 

" — This has set me thinking, I say," repeated Mrs. Boffin, 
cordially beaming under the influence of her husband's compliment, 
"and I have thought two things. First of all, that I have grown 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 319 

timid of reviving John Harmon's name. It's an unfortunate name, 
and I fancy I should reproach myself if I gave it to another dear 
child, and it proved again unlucky." 

"Now, whether," said Mr. Boffin, gravely propounding a case 
for his Secretary's opinion; "whether one might call that a 
superstition 1 " 

"It is a matter of feeling with Mrs. Boffin," said Rokesmith, 
gently. "The name has always been unfortunate. It has now 
this new unfortunate association connected with it. The name has 
died out. Why revive it? Might I ask Miss Wilfer what she 

thinks ? " 

" It has not been a fortunate name for me," said Bella, colour- 
ing " or at least it was not, until it led to my being here — but 

that is not the point in my thoughts. As we had given the name 
to the poor child, and as the poor child took so lovingly to me, I 
think I should feel jealous of calling another child by it. I think 
I should feel as if the name had become endeared to me, and I had 
no right to use' it so." 

" And that's your opinion ? " remarked Mr. Boffin, observant of 
the Secretary's face and again addressing him. 

" I say again, it is a matter of feeling," returned the Secretary. 
"I think Miss Wilfer's feeling veiy womanly and pretty." 

"Now, give us your opinion. Noddy," said Mrs. Boffin. 

"My opinion, old lady," returned the Golden Dustman, " is your 
opinion." 

"Then," said Mrs. Boffin, "we agree not to revive John Har- 
mon's name, but to let it rest in the grave. It is, as Mr. Roke- 
smith says, a matter of feeling, but Lor how many matters are 
matters of feeling ! Well ; and so I come to the second thing I 
have thought of. You must know, Bella, my dear, and Mr. Roke- 
smith, that when I first named to my husband my thoughts of adopt- 
ing a little orphan boy in remembrance of John Harmon, I further 
named to my husband that it was comforting to think that how the 
poor boy would be benefited by John's own money, and protected 
from John's own forlornness." 

" Hear, hear ! " cried Mr. Boffin. " So she did. Ancoar ! " 

"No, not Ancoar, Noddy, my dear," returned Mrs. Boffin, 
"because I am going to say something else. I meant that, I am 
sure, as much as I still mean it. But this little death has made 
me ask myself the question, seriously, whether I wasn't too bent 
upon pleasing myself. Else why did I seek out so much for a 
pretty child, and a child quite to my liking 1 Wanting to do good, 
why not do it for its own sake, and put my taste and likings by ? " 

" Perhaps," said Bella ; and perhaps she said it with some little 



320 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

sensitiveness arising out of those old curious relations of hers 
towards the murdered man; "perhaps, in reviving the name, you 
would not have liked to give it to a less interesting child than the 
original. He interested you very much." 

"Well, my dear," returned Mrs. Boffin, giving her a squeeze, 
"it's kind of you to find that reason out, and I hope it may have 
been so, and indeed to a certain extent I believe it was so, but I 
am afraid not to the whole extent. However, that don't come in 
question now, because we have done with the name." 

"Laid it up as a remembrance," suggested Bella, musingly. 

"Much better said, my dear; laid it up as a remembrance. 
Well then ; I have been thinking if I take any orphan to provide 
for, let it not be a pet and a plaything for me, but a creature to be 
helped for its own sake." 

"Not pretty then?" said Bella. 

" No," returned Mrs. Boffin, stoutly. 

"Nor prepossessing then?" said Bella. 

"No," returned Mrs. Boffin. "Not necessarily so. That's as 
it may happen. A well-disposed boy comes in my way who may 
be even a little wanting in such advantages for getting on in life, 
but is honest and industrious, and requires a helping hand, and 
deserves it. If I am very much in earnest and quite determined 
to be unselfish, let me take care of Az'wi." 

Here the footman whose feelings had been hurt on the former 
occasion, appeared, and crossing to Rokesmith apologetically an- 
nounced the objectionable Sloppy. 

The four members of Council looked at one another, and paused. 
" Shall he be brought here, ma'am ? " asked Rokesmith. 

"Yes," said Mrs. Boffin. Whereupon the footman disappeared, 
reappeared presenting Sloppy, and retired much disgusted. 

The consideration of Mrs. Boffin had clothed Mr. Sloppy in a 
suit of black, on which the tailor had received personal directions 
from Rokesmith to expend the utmost cunning of his art, with a 
view to the concealment of the cohering and sustaining buttons. 
But, so much more powerful were the frailties of Sloppy's form 
than the strongest resources of tailoring science, that he now stood 
before the Council, a perfect Argus in the way of buttons : shining 
and winking and gleaming and twinkling out of a hundred of those 
eyes of bright metal, at the dazzled spectators. The artistic taste 
of some unknown hatter had furnished him with a hat-band of 
wholesale capacity which was fluted behind, from the crown of his 
hat to the brim, and terminated in a black bunch, from wliich the 
imagination shrunk discomfited and the reason revolted. Some 
special powers with which his legs were endowed, had already 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 321 

hitched up his glossy trousers at the ankles, and bagged them at 
the knees : while similar gifts in his arms had raised his coat- 
sleeves from his wrists and accumulated them at his elbows. Thus 
set forth, with the additional embellishments of a very little tail to 
his coat, and a yawning gulf at his waistband, Sloppy stood con- 
fessed. 

"And how is Betty, my good fellow?" Mrs. Boffin asked 
him. 

"Thankee, mum," said Sloppy, "she do pretty nicely, and 
sending her dooty and many thanks for the tea and all favours 
and wishing to know the femily's healths." 

" Have you just come. Sloppy ? " 

"Yes, mum." 

" Then you have not had your dinner yet ? " 

"No, mum. But I mean to it. For I ain't forgotten your 
handsome orders that I was never to go away without having had 
a good 'un off of meat and beer and pudding — no : there was 
four of 'em, for I reckoned 'em up when I had 'em ; meat one, 
beer two, vegetables three, and which was four ? — Why, pudding, 
he was four ! " Here Sloppy threw his head back, opened his 
mouth wide, and lauglied rapturously. 

" How are the two poor little Minders 1 " asked Mrs. Boffin. 

" Striking right out, mum, and coming round beautiful." 

Mrs. Boffin looked on the other three members of Council, 
and then said, beckoning with her finger : 

"Sloppy." 

" Yes, mum." 

" Come forward, Sloppy. Should you like to dine here every 
day?" 

" Off of all four on 'em, mum ? Oh, mum ! " Sloppy 's feelings 
obliged him to squeeze his hat, and contract one leg at the 
knee. 

" Yes. And should you like to be always taken care of here, 
if you were industrious and deserving ? " 

" Oh, mum ! — But there's Mrs. Higden," said Sloppy, check- 
ing himself in his raptures, drawing back, and shaking his head 
with very serious meaning. "There's Mrs. Higden. Mrs. Higden 
goes before all. None can ever be better friends to me than 
Mrs. Higden's been. And she must be turned for, must Mrs. 
Higden. Where would Mrs. Higden be if she warn't turned 
for ? " At the mere thought of Mrs. Higden in this inconceivable 
affliction, Mr. Sloppy's countenance became pale, and manifested 
the most distressful emotions. 

" You are as right as right can be, Sloppy," said Mrs. Boffin, 



322 OUR MUTUAL Fill END. 

" and far be it from me to tell you otherwise. It shall be seen 
to. If Betty Higden can be turned for all the same, you shall 
come here and be taken care of for life, and be made able to keep 
her in other ways than the turning." 

" Even as to that, mum," answered the ecstatic Sloppy, " the 
turning might be done in the night, don't you see ? I could be 
here in the day, and turn in the night. I don't want no sleep, / 
don't. Or even if I any ways should want a wink or two," 
added Sloppy, after a moment's apologetic reflection, "I could 
take 'em turning. I've took 'em turning many a time, and 
enjoyed 'em w^onderful ! " 

On the grateful impulse of the moment, Mr. Sloppy kissed 
Mrs. Boffin's hand, and then detaching himself from that good 
creature that he might have room enough for his feelings, threw 
back his head, opened his mouth wide, and uttered a dismal howl. 
It was creditable to his tenderness of heart, but suggested that he 
might on occasion give some off'ence to the neighbours : the rather, 
as a footman looked in, and begged pardon, finding he was not 
wanted, but excused himself, on the ground " that he thought it 
was Cats." 



CHAPTER XI. 

SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART. 

Little Miss Peecher, from her little official dwelling-house, with 
its little windows like the eyes in needles, and its little doors like 
the covers of school-books, was very observant indeed of the 
object of her quiet affections. Love, though said to be afflicted 
with blindness, is a vigilant watchman, and Miss Peecher kept 
him on double duty over Mr. Bradley Headstone. It was not that 
she was naturally given to playing the spy — it was not that slie was 
at all secret, plotting, or mean — it was simply that she loved the 
unresponsive Bradley with all the primitive and homely stock of 
love that had never been examined or certificated out of her. 
If her faithful slate had had the latent qualities of sympathetic 
paper, and its pencil those of invisible ink, many a little treatise 
calculated to astonish the pupils would have come bursting through 
the dry sums in school-time under the warming influence of 
Miss Peecher's bosom. For, oftentimes when school was not, 
and her calm leisure and calm little house were her own. Miss 
Peecher would commit to the confidential slate an imaginary 
description of how, upon a balmy evening at dusk, two figures 
might have been observed in the market-garden ground round the 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 323 

corner, of whom one, being a manly form, bent over the other, 
bemg a womanly form of short stature and some compactness, and 
breathed in a low voice the words, "Emma Peecher, wilt thou 
be my own ? " after which the womanly form's head reposed 
upon the manly form's shoulder, and the nightingales tuned up. 
Though all unseen, and unsuspected by the pupils, Bradley Head- 
stone even pervaded the school exercises. Was Geography in 
question? He would come triumphantly flying out of Vesuvius 
and ^tna ahead of the lava, and would boil unharmed in the 
hot springs of Iceland, and would float majestically down the 
Ganges and the Nile. Did History chronicle a king of men? 
Behold him in pepper-and-salt pantaloons, with his watch-guard 
round his neck. Were copies to be written ? In capital B's and 
H's most of the girls under Miss Peecher 's tuition were half a 
year ahead of every other letter in the alphabet. And Mental 
Arithmetic, administered by Miss Peecher, often devoted itself 
to providing Bradley Headstone with a wardrobe of fabulous 
extent; fourscore and four neck-ties at two and ninepence-half- 
penny, two gross of silver watches at four pounds fifteen and 
sixpence, seventy-four black hats at eighteen shillings ; and many 
similar superfluities. 

The vigilant watchman, using his daily opportunities of turning 
his eyes in Bradley's direction, soon apprised Miss Peecher that 
Bradley was more preoccupied than had been his wont, and 
more given to strolling about with a downcast and reserved face, 
turning something difticult in his mind that was not in the 
scholastic syllabus. Putting this and that together — combining 
under the head "this," present appearances and the intimacy 
with Charley Hexam, and ranging under the head "that" the 
visit to his sister, the watchman reported to Miss Peecher his 
strong suspicions that the sister was at the bottom of it. 

"I wonder," said Miss Peecher, as she sat making up her 
weekly report on a half-holiday afternoon, " what they call Hexam's 
sister ? " 

Mary Anne, at her needlework, attendant and attentive, held 
her arm up. 

" Well, Mary Anne ? " 

" She is named Lizzie, ma'am." 

"She can hardly be named Lizzie, I think, Mary Anne," 
returned Miss Peecher, in a tunefully instructive voice. "Is 
Lizzie a Christian name, Mary Anne ? " 

Mary Anne laid down her work, rose, hooked herself behind as 
being under catechisation, and replied : " No, it is a corruption, 
Miss Peecher." 



324 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Who gave her that name ? " Miss Peecher was going on, from 
the mere force of liabit, when she checked herself, on Mary Anne's 
evincing theological impatience to strike in with her godfathers 
and her godmothers, and said : "I mean of what name is it a 
corruption ? " 

" EHzabeth or Eliza, Miss Peecher." 

" Right, Mary Anne. Whether there were any Lizzies in the 
early Christian Church must be considered very doubtful, very 
doubtful." Miss Peecher was exceedingly sage here. " Speaking 
correctly, we say, then, that Hexam's sister is called Lizzie : not 
that she is named so. Do we not, Mary Anne 1 " 

" We do, Miss Peecher." 

"And where," pursued Miss Peecher, complacent in her little 
transparent fiction of conducting the examination in a semi-official 
manner for Mary Anne's benefit, not her own, "where does this 
young woman, who is called but not named Lizzie live ? Think, 
now, before answering." 

"In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank, ma'am." 

"In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank," repeated 
Miss Peecher, as if possessed beforehand of the book in which it 
was written. " Exactly so. And what occupation does this young 
woman pursue, Mary Anne? Take time." 

" She has a place of trust at an outfitter's in the City, ma'am." 

" Oh ! " said Miss Peecher, pondering on it : but smoothly added, 
in a confirmatory tone, " At an outfitter's in the City. Ye-es ? " 

"And Charley " Mary Anne was proceeding, when Miss 

Peecher stared. 

"I mean Hexam, Miss Peecher." 

"I should think you did, Mary Anne. I am glad to hear you 
do. And Hexam — ?" 

"Says," Mary Anne went on, "that he is not pleased with his 
sister, and that his sister won't be guided by his advice, and per- 
sists in being guided by somebody else's ; and that " 

" Mr. Headstone coming across the garden ! " exclaimed Miss 
Peecher, with a flushed glance at the looking-glass. "You have 
answered very well, Mary Anne. You are forming an excellent 
habit of arranging your thoughts clearly. That will do." 

The discreet Mary Anne resumed her seat and her silence, and 
stitched, and stitched, and was stitching when the schoolmaster's 
shadow came in before him, announcing that he might be instantly 
expected. 

"Good evening. Miss Peecher," he said, pursuing the shadow, 
and taking its place. 

" Good evening, Mr. Headstone. Mary Anne, a chair." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 325 

"Thank yoii," said Bradley, seating himself in his constrained 
manner. " This is but a flying visit. I have looked in, on my 
way, to ask a kindness of you as a neighbour." 

"Did you say on your way, Mr. Headstone?" asked Miss 
Peecher. 

" On my way to — where I am going." 

"Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank," repeated Miss 
Peecher, in her own thoughts. 

" Charley Hexam has gone to get a book or two he wants, and 
will probably be back before me. As we leave my house empty, I 
took the liberty of telling him I would leave the key here. 
Would you kindly allow me to do so?" 

" Certainly, Mr. Headstone. Going for an evening walk, sir ? " 

"Partly for a walk, and partly for — on business." 

"Business in Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank," 
repeated Miss Peecher to herself. 

" Having said which," pursued Bradley, laying his door-key on 
the table, " I must be already going. There is nothing I can do 
for you, Miss Peecher ? " 

" Thank you, Mr. Headstone. In which direction ? " 

" In the direction of Westminster." 

" Mill Bank," Miss Peecher repeated in her own thoughts once 
again. " No, thank you, Mr. Headstone ; I'll not trouble you." 

"You couldn't trouble me," said the schoolmaster. 

"Ah!" returned Miss Peecher, though not aloud; "but you 
can trouble me/" and for all her quiet manner, and her quiet 
smile, she was full of trouble as he went his way. 

She was right touching his destination. He held as straight a 
course for the house of the dolls' dressmaker as the wisdom of his 
ancestors, exemplified in the construction of the intervening streets, 
would let him, and walked with a bent head hammering at one 
fixed idea. It had been an immovable idea since he first set eyes 
upon her. It seemed to him as if all that he could suppress in 
himself he had suppressed, as if all that he could restrain in 
himself he had restrained, and the time had come — in a rush, in 
a moment — when the power of self-command had departed from 
him. Love at first sight is a trite expression quite sufliciently 
discussed ; enough that in certain smouldering natures like this 
man's, that passion leaps into a blaze, and makes such head as fire 
does in a rage of wind, when other passions, but for its mastery, 
could be held in chains. As a multitude of weak, imitative natures 
are always lying by, ready to go mad upon the next wrong idea 
that may be broached — in these times, generally some form of 
tribute to Somebody for something that never was done, or, if ever 



326 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

done, that was done by Somebody Else — so these less ordinary 
natures may lie by for years, ready on the touch of an instant to 
burst into ilame. 

The schoolmaster went his way, brooding and brooding, and a 
sense of being vanquished in a stmggle might have been pieced 
out of his worried face. Truly, in his breast there lingered a re- 
sentful shame to find himself defeated by this passion for Charley 
Hexam's sister, though in the very self-same moments he was con- 
centrating himself upon the object of bringing the jDassion to a 
successful issue. 

He appeared before the dolls' dressmaker, sitting alone at her 
work. " Oho ! " thought that sharp young personage, " it's you, is 
it ? / know your tricks and your manners, my friend ! " 

"Hexam's sister," said Bradley Headstone, "is not come home 

yet?" 

"You are quite a conjuror," returned Miss Wren. 

" I will wait, if you please, for I want to speak to her." 

"Do you?" returned Miss Wren. "Sit down. I hope it's 
mutual." 

Bradley glanced distrustfully at the shrewd face again bending 
over the work, and said, trying to conquer doubt and hesitation : 

" I hope you don't imply that my visit will be unacceptable to 
Hexam's sister ? " 

"There. Don't call her that. I can't bear you to call her 
that," returned Miss Wren, snapping her fingers in a volley of 
impatient snaps, "for I don't like Hexam." 

"Indeed?" 

" No," Miss Wren wrinkled her nose, to express dislike. " Self- 
ish. Thinks only of himself. The way with all of you." 

" The way with all of us ? Then you don't like me ? " 

" So-so," replied Miss Wren, with a shrug and a laugh. " Don't 
know much about you." 

"But I was not aware it was the way with all of us," said 
Bradley, returning to the accusation, a little injured. "Won't 
you say, some of us ? " 

" Meaning," returned the little creature, "every one of you, but 
you. Hah ! Now look this lady in the face. This is Mrs. Truth. 
The Honourable. Full-dressed." 

Bradley glanced at the doll she held up for his observation — 
which had been lying on its face on her bench, while with a needle 
and thread she fastened the dress on at the back — and looked 
from it to her. 

" I stand tlie Honourable Mrs. T. on my bench in this corner 
against the wall, wliere her blue eyes can shine upon you," pursued 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 327 

Miss Wren, doing so, and making two little dabs at him in the 
air with her needle, as if she pricked him with it in his own eyes ; 
" and I defy you to tell me, with Mrs. T. for a witness, what you 
have come here for." 

"To see Hexam's sister." 

" You don't say so ! " retorted Miss Wren, hitching her chin. 
" But on whose account ? " 

" Her own." 

" Oh, Mrs. T. ! " exclaimed Miss Wren. " You hear him ? " 

" To reason with her," pursued Bradley, half humouring what 
was present, and half angry with what was not present ; "for her 
own sake." 

" Oh, Mrs. T. ! " exclaimed the dressmaker. 

"For her own sake," repeated Bradley, warming, "and for her 
brother's, and as a perfectly disinterested person." 

"Really, Mrs. T.," remarked the dressmaker, "since it comes 
to this, we must positively turn you with your face to the wall." 
She had hardly done so, when Lizzie Hexam arrived, and showed 
some surprise on seeing Bradley Headstone there, and Jenny shak- 
ing her little fist at him close before her eyes, and the Honourable 
Mrs. T. with her face .to the wall. 

" Here's a perfectly disinterested person, Lizzie dear," said the 
knowing Miss Wren, " come to talk with you, for your own sake 
and your brother's. Think of that. I am sure there ought to be 
no third party present at anything so very kind and so very seri- 
ous ; and so, if you'll remove the third party up-stairs, my dear, 
the third party will retire." 

Lizzie took the hand which the dolls' dressmaker held out to her 
for the purpose of being supported away, but only looked at her 
with an inquiring smile, and made no other movement. 

" The third party hobbles awfully, you know, when she's left to 
herself," said Miss Wren, "her back being so bad, and her legs so 
queer ; so she can't retire gracefully unless you help her, Lizzie." 

" She can do no better than stay wdiere she is," returned Lizzie, 
releasing the hand, and laying her own lightly on Miss Jenny's 
curls. And then to Bradley : " From Charley, sir?" 

In an irresolute way, and stealing a clumsy look at her, Bradley 
rose to place a chair for her, and then returned to his own. 

"Strictly speaking," said he, "I come from Charley, because I 
left him only a little while ago ; but I am not commissioned by 
Charley. I come of my own spontaneous act." 

With her elbows on her bench, and her chin upon her hands. 
Miss Jenny Wren sat looking at him with a watchful sidelong look. 
Lizzie, in her different way, sat looking at him too. 



328 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" The fact is," began Bradley, with a mouth so dry that he 
had some difficulty in articulating his words : the consciousness of 
which rendered his manner still more ungainly and undecided; 
"the truth is, that Charley, having no secrets from me (to the 
best of my belief), has confided the whole of the matter to me." 

He came to a stop, and Lizzie asked: "What matter, sir?" 

"I thought," returned the schoolmaster, stealing another look 
at her, and seeming to try in vain to sustain it; for the look 
dropped as it lighted on her eyes, "that it might be so superfluous 
as to be almost impertinent, to enter upon a definition of it. My 
allusion was to this matter of your having put aside your brother's 
plans for you, and given the preference to those of Mr. — I believe 
the name is Mr. Eugene Wrayburn." 

He made this point of not being certain of the name, with an- 
other uneasy look at her, which dropped like the last. 

Nothing being said on the other side, he had to begin again, and 
began with new embarrassment. 

" Your brother's plans were communicated to me when he first 
had them in his thoughts. In point of fact he spoke to me about 
them when I was last here — when we were walking back together, 
and when I — when the impression was fresh upon me of having 
seen his sister." 

There might have been no meaning in it, but the little dress- 
maker here removed one of her supporting hands from her chin, 
and musingly turned the Honourable Mrs. T. with her face to the 
company. That done, she fell into her former attitude. 

"I approved of his idea," said Bradley, with his uneasy look 
wandering to the doll, and unconsciously resting there longer than 
it had rested on Lizzie, " both because your brother ought naturally 
to be the originator of any such scheme, and because I hoped to be 
able to promote it. I should have had inexpressible pleasure, I 
should have taken inexpressible interest, in promoting it. There- 
fore I must acknowledge that when your brother was disappointed, 
I too was disappointed. I wish to avoid reservation or conceal- 
ment, and I fully acknowledge that." 

He appeared to have encouraged himself by having got so far. 
At all events he went on with much greater firmness and force of 
emphasis : though with a curious disposition to set his teeth, and 
with a curious tight-screwing movement of his right hand in the 
clenching palm of his left, like the action of one who was being 
physically hurt, and was unwilling to cry out. 

"I am a man of strong feelings, and I have strongly felt this 
disappointment. I do strongly feel it. I don't show what I feel ; 
some of us are obliged habitually to keep it down. To keep it 



OUR MUTUAL FEIEND. 329 

down. But to return to your brother. He has taken the matter 
so much to heart that he has remonstrated (in my presence he 
remonstrated) with Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, if that be the name. 
He did so, quite ineffectually. As any one not blinded to the 
real character of Mr. — Mr. Eugene Wrayburn — would readily 
suppose." 

He looked at Lizzie again, and held the look. And his face 
turned from burning red to white, and from white back to burning 
red, and so for the time to lasting deadly white. 

" Finally, I resolved to come here alone, and appeal to you. I 
resolved to come here alone, and entreat you to retract the course 
you have chosen, and instead of confiding in a mere stranger — a 
person of most insolent behaviour to your brother and others — to 
prefer your brother and your brother's fri^d." 

Lizzie Hexam had changed colour when those changes came 
over him, and her face now expressed some anger, more dislike, 
and even a touch of fear. But she answered him very steadily. 

" I cannot doubt, Mr. Headstone, that your visit is well meant. 
You have been so good a friend to Charley that I have no right to 
doubt it. I have nothing to tell Charley, but that I accepted the 
help to which he so much objects before he made any plans for me ; 
or certainly before I knew of any. It was considerately and deli- 
cately offered, and there were reasons that had weight with me 
which should be as dear to Charley as to me. I have no more to 
say to Charley on this subject." 

His lips trembled and stood apart, as he followed this repudiation 
of himself, and limitation of her words to her brother. 

" I should have told Charley, if he had come to me," she re- 
sumed, as though it were an after-thought, "that Jenny and I find 
our teacher very able and very patient, and that she takes great 
pains with us. So much so, that we have said to her we hope in 
a very little Avhile to be able to go on by ourselves. Charley 
knows about teachers, and I should also have told him, for, his sat- 
isfaction, that ours comes from an institution where teachers are 
regularly brought up." 

" I should like to ask you," said Bradley Headstone, grinding his 
words slowly out, as though they came from a rusty mill; "I 
should like to ask you, if I may without offence, whether you 

would have objected no ; rather, I should like to say, if I may 

without offence, that I wish I had had the opportunity of coming 
here with your brother and devoting my poor abilities and experi- 
ence to your service." 

" Thank you, Mr. Headstone." 

"But I fear," he pursued, after a pause, furtively wrenching at 



330 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

the seat of his chair with one hand, as if he would have wrenched 
the chair to pieces, and gloomily observing her eyes were cast 
down, "that my humble services would not have found much 
favour with you ? " 

She made no reply, and the poor stricken wretch sat contending 
with himself in a heat of passion and torment. After a while he 
took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead and hands. 

" There is only one thing more I had to say, but it is the most 
important. There is a reason against this matter, there is a per- 
sonal relation concerned in this matter, not yet explained to you. 
It might — I don't say it would — it might — induce you to think 
differently. To proceed under the present circumstances is out of 
the question. Will you please come to the understanding that 
there shall be another interview on the subject ? " 

"With Charley, Mr. Headstone?" 

"With — well," he answered, breaking off, "yes! Say with 
him too. Will you please come to the understanding that there 
must be another interview under more favourable circumstances, 
before the whole case can be submitted ? " 

"I don't," said Lizzie, shaking her head, "understand your 
meaning, Mr. Headstone." 

" Limit my meaning for the present," he interrupted, "to the 
whole case being submitted to you in another interview." 

" What case, Mr. Headstone ? What is wanting to it ? " 

" You — you shall be informed in the other interview." Then 
he said, as if in a burst of irrepressible despair, "I — I leave it all 
incomplete ! There is a spell upon me, I think ! " And then 
added, almost as if he asked for pity, " Good night ! " 

He held out his hand. As she, with manifest hesitation, not to 
say reluctance, touched it, a strange tremble passed over him, and 
his face, so deadly white, was moved as by a stroke of pain. Then 
he was gone. 

The dolls' dressmaker sat with her attitude unchanged, eyeing 
the door by which he had departed, until Lizzie pushed her bench 
aside and sat down near her. Then, eyeing Lizzie as she had pre- 
viously eyed Bradley and the door, Miss Wren chopped that very 
sudden and keen chop in which her jaws sometimes indulged, 
leaned back in her chair with folded arms, and thus expressed 
herself : 

" Humph ! If he — I mean, of course, my dear, the party who 
is coming to court me when the time comes — should be that sort 
of man, he may spare himself the trouble, lie wouldn't do to be 
trotted about and made useful. He'd take fire and blow up while 
he was about it." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 331 

"And so you would be rid of him," said Lizzie, humouring her. 

"Not so easily," returned Miss Wren. "He wouldn't blow up 
alone. He'd carry me up with him. / know his tricks and 
his manners." 

" Would he want to hurt you, do you mean ? " asked Lizzie. 

"Mightn't exactly want to do it, my dear," returned Miss 
Wren; "but a lot of gunpowder among lighted lucifer-matches in 
the next room might almost as well be here." 

" He is a very strange man," said Lizzie, thoughtfully. 

" I wish he was so very strange a man as to be a total stranger," 
answered the sharp little thing. 

It being Lizzie's regular occupation when they were alone of an 
evening to brush out and smootli the long fair hair of the dolls' 
dressmaker, she unfastened a ribbon that kept it back while the 
little creature was at her work, and it fell in a beautiful shower 
over the poor shoulders that were much in need of such adorning 
rain. "Not now, Lizzie, dear," said Jenny; "let us have a talk 
by the fire." With those words, she in turn loosened her friend's 
dark hair, and it dropped of its own weight over her bosom, in two 
rich masses. Pretending to compare the colours and admire the 
contrast, Jenny so managed a mere touch or two of her nimble 
hands, as that she herself laying a cheek on one of the dark folds, 
seemed blinded by her own clustering curls to all but the fire, while 
the fine handsome face and brow of Lizzie were revealed without 
obstruction in the sober light. 

"Let us have a talk," said Jenny, "about Mr. Eugene Wray- 
burn." 

Something sparkled down among the fair hair resting on the 
dark hair ; and if it were not a star — which it couldn't be — it 
was an eye ; and if it were an eye, it was Jenny Wren's eye, bright 
and watchful as the bird's whose name she had taken. 

" W^hy about Mr.Wrayburn ? " Lizzie asked. 

"For no better reason than because I'm in the humour. I 
wonder whether he's rich ! " 

" No, not rich." 

"Poor?" 

" I think so, for a gentleman." 

" Ah ! To be sure ! Yes, he's a gentleman. Not of our sort, 
is he?" 

A shake of the head, a thoughtful shake of the head, and the 
answer, softly spoken, " Oh no, oh no ! " 

The dolls' dressmaker had an arm round her friend's waist. 
Adjusting the arm, she slyly took the opportunity of blowing at 
her own hair where it fell over her face ; then the eye down there 



332 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

under lighter shadows sparkled more brightly and appeared more 
watchful. 

" When He turns up, he shan't be a gentleman ; I'll very soon 
send him packing, if he is. However, he's not Mr. Wrayburn ; I 
haven't captivated him. I wonder whether anybody has, Lizzie ! " 

"It is very likely." 

" Is it very likely 1 I wonder who ! " 

"Is it not very likely that some lady has been taken by him, 
and that he may love her dearly ? " 

"Perhaps. I don't know. What would you think of him, 
Lizzie, if you were a lady?" 

"la lady ! " she repeated, laughing. " Such a fancy ! " 

" Yes. But say : just as a fancy, and for instance." 

"la lady ! I, a poor girl who used to row poor father on the 
river. I, who had rowed poor father out and home on the very 
night when I saw him for the first time. I, who was made so 
timid by his looking at me, that I got up and went out ! " 

("He did look at you, even that night, though you were not a 
lady ! " thought Miss Wren.) 

"la lady ! " Lizzie went on in a low voice, with her eyes upon 
the fire. " I, with poor father's grave not even cleared of unde- 
served stain and shame, and he trying to clear it for me ! la 
lady ! " 

"Only as a fancy, and for instance," urged Miss Wren. 

" Too much, Jenny dear, too much ! My fancy is not able to 
get that far." As the low fire gleamed upon her, it showed her 
smiling, mournfully and abstractedly. 

"But I am in the humour, and I must be humoured, Lizzie, 
because after all I am a poor little thing, and have had a hard day 
with my bad child. Look in the fire, as I like to hear you tell 
how you used to do when you lived in that dreaiy old house that 
had once been a windmill. Look in the — what was its name when 
you told fortunes with your brother that I doivt like ? " 

"The hollow down by the flare?" 

" Ah ! That's the name ! You can find a lady there, / know." 

" More easily than I can make one of such material as myself, 
Jenny." 

The sparkling eye looked steadfastly up, as the musing face 
looked thoughtfully down. " Well ? " said the dolls' dressmaker. 
" We have found our lady ? " 

Lizzie nodded, and asked, "Shall she be rich?" 

" She had better be, as he's poor." 

" She is very rich. Shall she be handsome ? " 

"Even you can be that, Lizzie, so she ought to be." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 333 

" She is very handsome." 

"What does she say about himr' asked Miss Jenny, in a low 
voice : watchful, through an intervening silence, of the face looking 
down at the fire. 

"She is glad, glad to be rich, that he may have the money. 
She is glad, glad to be beautiful, that he may be proud of her. 
Her poor heart " 

" Eh ? Her poor lieart ? " said Miss Wren. 

" Her heart — is given him, with all its love and truth. She 
would joyfully die with him, or, better than that, die for him. She 
knows he has failings, but she thinks they have grown up through 
his being like one cast away, for the want of something to trust in, 
and care for, and think well of. And she says, that lady rich and 
beautiful that I can never come near, ' Only put me in that empty 
place, only try how little I mind myself, only prove what a world 
of things I will do and bear for you, and I hope that you might 
even come to be much better than you are, through me who am so 
much worse, and hardly worth the thinking of beside you.' " 

As the face looking at the fire had become exalted and forgetful 
in the rapture of these words, the little creature, openly clearing 
away her fair hair with her disengaged hand, had gazed at it with 
earnest attention and something like alarm. Now that the speaker 
ceased, the little creature laid down her head again, and moaned, 
" me, me, me ! " 

" In pain, dear Jenny 1 " asked Lizzie, as if awakened. 

"Yes, but not the old pain. Lay me down, lay me down. 
Don't go out of my sight to-night. Lock the door and keep close 
to me." Then turning away her face, she said in a whisper to her- 
self, " My Lizzie, my poor Lizzie ! my blessed children, come 
back in the long bright slanting rows, and come for her, not me. 
She wants help more than I, my blessed children ! " 

She had stretched her hands up with that higher and better look, 
and now she turned again, and folded them round Lizzie's neck, 
and rocked herself on Lizzie's breast. 



CHAPTER XII. 

MORE BIRDS OF PREY. 

Rogue Riderhood dwelt deep and dark in Limehouse Hole, 
among the riggers, and the mast, oar and block makers, and the 
boat-builders, and the sail-lofts, as in a kind of ship's hold stored 
full of water-side characters, some no better than himself, some very 



334 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

much better, and none much worse. The Hole, albeit in a general 
way not over nice in its choice of company, was rather shy in 
reference to the honour of cultivating the Rogue's acquaintance ; 
more frequently giving him the cold shoulder than the warm hand, 
and seldom or never drinking with him unless at his own expense. 
A part of the Hole, indeed, contained so much public spirit and 
private virtue that not even this strong leverage could move it to 
good-fellowship with a tainted accuser. But, there may have been 
the drawback on this magnanimous morality, that its exponents 
held a true witness before Justice to be the next unneighbourly and 
accursed character to a false one. 

Had it not been for the daughter whom he often mentioned, Mr. 
Riderhood might have found the Hole a mere grave as to any 
means it would yield him of getting a living. But Miss Pleasant 
Riderhood had some httle position and connection in Limehouse 
Hole. Upon the smallest of small scales, she was an unlicensed 
pawnbroker, keeping what was popularly called a Leaving Shop, by 
lending insignificant sums on insignificant articles of property 
deposited with her as security. In her four-and-twentieth year of 
life. Pleasant was already in her fifth year of this way of trade. 
Her deceased mother had established the business, and on that 
parent's demise she had appropriated a secret capital of fifteen shil- 
lings to establishing herself in it ; the existence of such capital in a 
pillow being the last intelligible confidential communication made to 
her by the departed, before succumbing to dropsical conditions of 
snuff" and gin, incompatible equally with coherence and existence. 

Why christened Pleasant, the late Mrs. Riderhood might possibly 
have been able at some time to explain, and possibly not. Her 
daughter had no information on that point. Pleasant she found 
herself, and she couldn't help it. She had not been consulted on 
the question, any more than on the question of her coming into 
these terrestrial parts, to want a name. Similarly, she found her- 
self possessed of what is colloquially termed a swivel eye (derived 
from her father), which she might perhaps have declined if her 
sentiments on the subject had been taken. She was not otherwise 
positively ill-looking, though anxious, meagre, of a muddy com- 
plexion, and looking as old again as she really was. 

As some dogs have it in the blood, or are trained, to worry 
certain creatures to a certain point, so — not to make the compari- 
son disrespectfully — Pleasant Riderhood had it in the blood, or had 
been trained, to regard seamen, within certain limits, as her prey. 
Show her a man in a blue jacket, and, figuratively speaking, she 
pinned him instantly. Yet, all things considered, she was not of 
an evil mind or an unkindly disposition, For, observe how many 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 335 

things were to be considered according to her own unfortunate ex- 
perience. Show Pleasant Kiderhood a Wedding in the street, and 
she only saw two people taking out a regular license to quarrel and 
fight. Show her a Christening, and she saw a little heathen per- 
sonage having a quite superfluous name bestowed upon it, inasmuch 
as it would be commonly addressed by some abusive ejDithet ; which 
little personage was not in the least wanted by anybody, and would 
be shoved and banged out of everybody's way, until it should grow 
big enough to shove and bang. Show her a Funeral, and she saw 
an un'remunerative ceremony in the nature of a black masquerade, 
conferring a temporary gentility on the performers, at an immense 
expense, and representing the only formal party ever given by the 
deceased. Show her a live father, and she saw but a duplicate of 
her own father, who from her infancy had been taken with fits and 
starts of discharging his duty to her, which duty was always in- 
corporated in the form of a fist or a leathern strap, and being 
discharged hurt her. All things considered, therefore. Pleasant 
Riderhood was not so very, very bad. There was even a touch of 
romance in her — of such romance as could creep into Limehouse 
Hole — and maybe sometimes of a summer evening, when she stood 
with folded arms at her shop-door, looking from the reeking street to 
the sky where the sun was setting, she may have had some vapor- 
ous visions of far-off" islands in the southern seas or elsewhere (not 
being geographically particular) where it would be good to roam 
with a congenial partner among groves of bread-fruit, waiting for 
ships to be wafted from the hollow ports of civilisation. For 
sailors to be got the better of were essential to Miss Pleasant's 
Eden. 

Not on a summer evening did she come to her little shop- door, 
when a certain man standing over against the house on the oppo- 
site side of the street took notice of her. That was on a cold 
shrewd windy evening, after dark. Pleasant Riderhood shared 
with most of the lady inhabitants of the Hole, the peculiarity that 
her hair was a ragged knot, constantly coming down behind, and 
that she never could enter upon any undertaking without first 
twisting it into place. At that particular moment, being newly 
come to the threshold to take a look out of doors, she was winding 
herself up with both hands after this fashion. And so prevalent 
was the fashion, that on the occasion of a fight or other disturbance 
in the Hole, the ladies would be seen flocking from all quarters 
universally twisting their back-hair as they came along, and many 
of them, in the hurry of the moment, carrying their back-combs in 
their mouths. 

It was a wretched little shop, with a roof that any man standing 



336 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

in it could touch with his hand ; httle bettei' than a cellar or cave, 
down three steps. Yet in its ill-lighted window, among a flaring 
handkerchief or two, an old peacoat or so, a few valueless watches 
and compasses, a jar of tobacco and two crossed pipes, a bottle of 
walnut ketchup, and some horrible sweets — these creature discom- 
forts serving as a blind to the main business of the Leaving Shop 
— was displayed the inscription Seaman's Boarding House. 

Taking notice of Pleasant Riderhood at the door, the man crossed 
so quickly that she was still winding herself up, when he stood close 
before her. 

" Is your father at home ? " said he. 

"I think he is," returned Pleasant, droj^ping her arms; "come 
in." 

It was a tentative reply, the man having a seafaring appearance. 
Her father was not at home, and Pleasant knew it. " Take a 
seat by the fire," were her hospitable words when she had got him 
in ; " men of your calling are always welcome here." 

" Thankee," said the man. 

His manner was the manner of a sailor, and his hands were the 
hands of a sailor, except that they were smooth. Pleasant had an 
eye for sailors, and she noticed the unused colour and texture of 
the hands, sunburnt though they were, as sharply as she noticed 
their unmistakable looseness and suppleness, as he sat himself down 
with his left arm carelessly thrown across his left leg a little above 
the knee, and the right arm as carelessly thrown over the elbow of 
the wooden chair, with the hand curved, half open and half shut, 
as if it had just let go a rope. 

"Might you be looking for a Boarding-House ? " Pleasant in- 
quired, taking her observant stand on one side of the fire. 

" I don't rightly know my plans yet," returned the man. 

"You ain't looking for a Leaving Shop?" 

"No," said the man. 

"No," assented Pleasant, "you've got too much of an outfit on 
you for that. But if you should want either, this is both." 

" Ay, ay ! " said the man, glancing round the place. " I know. 
I've been here before." 

"Did you Leave anything when you were here before?" asked 
Pleascint, with a view to principal and interest. 

" No." The man shook his head. 

"I am pretty sure you never boarded here?" 

"No." The man again shook his head. 

"What did you do here when you were here before ?" asked 
Pleasant. " For I don't remember you." 

" It's not at all likely you should. I only stood at the door, one 




MISS RIDERHOOD AT HOME. 



338 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

night — on the lower step there — while a shipmate of mine looked 
in to speak to your father. I remember the place well." Look- 
ing very curiously round it. 

" Might that have been long ago ? " 

" Ay, a goodish bit ago. When I came off my last voyage." 

" Then you have not been to sea lately 1 " 

" No. Been in the sick bay since then, and been employed 
ashore." 

" Then, to be sure, that accounts for your hands." 

The man with a keen look, a quick smile, and a change of 
manner, caught her up. ''You're a good observer. Yes. That 
accounts for my hands." 

Pleasant was somewhat disquieted by his look, and returned it 
suspiciously. Not only was his change of manner, though very sud- 
den, quite collected, but his former manner, which he resumed, had 
a certain suppressed confidence and sense of power in it that were 
half threatening. 

"Will your father be long?" he inquired. 

" I don't know. I can't say." 

" As you supposed he was at home, it would seem that he has 
just gone out ? How's that ? " 

" I supposed he had come home," Pleasant explained. 

" Oh ! You supposed he had come home ? Then he has been 
some time out ? How's that ? " 

" I don't want to deceive you. Father's on the river in his boat." 

" At the old work 1 " asked the man. 

"I don't know what you mean," said Pleasant, shrinking a step 
back, " What on earth d'ye want ? " 

"I don't want to hurt your father. I don't want to say I 
might, if I chose. I want to speak to him. Not much in that, is 
there ? There shall be no secrets from you ; you shall be by. 
And plainly. Miss Riderhood, there's nothing to be got out of me, 
or made of me. I am not good for the Leaving Shop, I am not 
good for the Boarding-House, I am not good for anything in your 
way to the extent of sixpenu'orth of halfpence. Put the idea aside, 
and we shall get on together." 

" But you're a seafaring man ? " argued Pleasant, as if that were 
a sufficient reason for his being good for something in her way. 

"Yes and no. I have been, and I may be again. But I am 
not for you. Won't you take my word for it 1 " 

The conversation had arrived at a crisis to justify Miss Pleasant's 
hair in tumbling down. It tumbled down accordingly, and she 
twisted it up, looking from under her bent forehead at the man. In 
taking stock of his familiarly worn rough-weather nautical clothes, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 339 

piece by piece, she took stock of a formidable knife in a sheath at 
his waist ready to his hand, and of a whistle hanging round his 
neck, and of a short jagged knotted club with a loaded head that 
peeped out of a pocket of his loose outer jacket or frock. He sat 
quietly looking at her ; but, with these appendages partially reveal- 
ing themselves, and with a quantity of bristling oakum-coloured 
head and whisker, he had a formidable appearance. 

"Won't you take my word for it?" he asked again. 

Pleasant answered with a short dumb nod. He rejoined with 
another short dumb nod. Then he got up and stood with his arms 
folded, in front of the fire, looking down into it occasionally, as she 
stood with her arms folded, leaning against the side of the chimney- 
piece, 

" To wile away the time till your father comes," he said, — 
" pray is there much robbing and murdering of seamen about the 
water-side now?" 

"No," said Pleasant. 

"Any?" 

"Complaints of that sort are sometimes made, about RatclifFe and 
Wapping, and up that way. But who knows how many are true ? " 

" To be sure. And it don't seem necessary." 

" That's what I say," observed Pleasant, " Where's the reason 
for it ? Bless the sailors, it ain't as if they ever could keep what 
they have, without it." 

"You're right. Their money may be soon got out of them, 
without violence," said the man. 

" Of course it may," said Pleasant ; " and then they ship again, 
and get more. And the best thing for 'em, too, to ship again as 
soon as ever they can be brought to it. They're never so well off 
as when they're afloat," 

" I'll tell you why I ask," pursued the visitor, looking up from 
the fire, "I Avas once beset that way myself, and left for dead," 

" No ? " said Pleasant, " Where did it happen ? " 

"It happened," returned the man, with a ruminative air, as he 
drew his right hand across his chin, and dipped the other in the 
pocket of his rough outer coat, "it happened somewhere about here 
as I reckon, I don't think it can have been a mile from here." 

"Were you drunk?" asked Pleasant. 

"I was muddled, but not with fair drinking. I had not been 
drinking, you understand. A mouthful did it." 

Pleasant with a grave look shook her head ; importing that she 
understood the process, but decidedly disapproved. 

"Fair trade is one thing," said she, "but that's another. No 
one has a right to carry on with Jack in that way." 



340 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" The sentiment does you credit," returned the man, with a grim 
smile ; and added, in a mutter, " the more so, as I beheve it's not 
your father's. — Yes, I had a bad time of it, that time. I lost every- 
thing, and had a sharp struggle for my life, weak as I was." 

" Did you get the parties punished 1 " asked Pleasant. 

"A tremendous punishment followed," said the man, more seri- 
ously; "but it was not of my bringing about." 

" Of whose, then ? " asked Pleasant. 

The man pointed upward with his forefinger, and, slowly recover- 
ing that hand, settled his chin in it again as he looked at the fire. 
Bringing her inherited eye to bear upon him. Pleasant Riderhood 
felt more and more uncomfortable, his manner was so mysterious, 
so stern, so self-possessed. 

"Anyways," said the damsel, "I am glad punishment followed, 
and I say so. Fair trade with seafaring men gets a bad name 
through deeds of violence. I am as much against deeds of violence 
being done to seafaring men, as seafaring men can be themselves. 
I am of the same opinion as my mother was, when she was living. 
Fair trade, my mother used to say, but no robbery and no blows." 
In the way of trade Miss Pleasant would have taken — and indeed 
did take when she could — as much as thirty shillings a week for 
board that would be dear at five, and likewise conducted the Leav- 
ing business upon correspondingly equitable principles ; yet she had 
that tenderness of conscience and those feelings of humanity, that 
the moment her ideas of trade were overstepped, she became the 
seaman's champion, even against lier father, whom she seldom other- 
wise resisted. 

But she was here interrupted by her father's voice exclaiming 
angrily, " Now, Poll Parrot ! " and by her father's hat being heavily 
flung from his hand and striking her face. Accustomed to such occa- 
sional manifestations of his sense of parental duty. Pleasant merely 
wiped her face on her hair (which of course had tumbled down) before 
she twisted it up. This was another common procedure on the part 
of the ladies of the Hole, when heated by verbal or fistic altercation. 

" Blest if I believe such a Poll Parrot as you was ever learned 
to speak ! " growled Mr. Riderhood, stooping to pick up his hat, 
and making a feint at her with his head and right elbow ; for he 
took the delicate subject of robbing seamen in extraordinary dud- 
geon, and was out of humour too. " What are you Poll Parroting 
at now 1 Ain't you got nothing to do but fold your arms and stand 
a Poll Parroting all night 1 " 

" Let her alone," urged the man. " She was only speaking to me." 

" Let her alone too ! " retorted Mr. Riderhood, eyeing him all 
over. " Do you know she's my daughter ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 341 

" Yes." 

" And don't you know that I won't have no Poll Parroting on 
the part of my daughter ? No, nor yet that I won't take no Poll 
Parroting from no man ? And who may you be, and what may 
you want ? " 

"How can I tell you until you are silent?" returned the other 
fiercely. 

"Well," said Mr. Riderhood, quailing a little, "I am willing to 
be silent for the purpose of hearing. But don't Poll Parrot me." 

" Are you thirsty, you % " the man asked, in the same fierce short 
way, after returning his look. 

"Why nat'rally," said Mr. Riderhood, "ain't I always thirsty?" 
(Indignant at the absurdity of the question.) 

" What will you drink % " demanded the man. 

" Sherry wine," returned Mr. Riderhood, in the same sharp tone, 
" if you're capable of it." 

The man put his hand in his pocket, took out half a sovereign, 
and begged the favour of Miss Pleasant that she would fetch a 
bottle. "With the cork undrawn," he added, emphatically, look- 
ing at her father. 

"I'll take my Alfred David," muttered Mr. Riderhood, slowly 
relaxing into a dark smile, " that you know a move. Do / know 
yoiL ? N-n-no, I don't know you." 

The man replied, " No, you don't know me." And so they stood 
looking at one another surlily enough, until Pleasant came back. 

"There's small glasses on the shelf," said Riderhood to his 
daughter. " Give me the one without a foot. I gets my living 
by the sweat of my brow, and it's good enough for me.'' This had 
a modest self-denying appearance ; but it soon turned ouV that as, 
by reason of the impossibility of standing the glass upright while 
there was anything in it, it required to be emptied as soon as filled, 
Mr. Riderhood managed to drink in the proportion of three to one. 

With his Fortunatus's goblet ready in his hand, Mr. Riderhood 
sat down on one side of the table before the fire, and the strange 
man on the other : Pleasant occupying a stool between the latter 
and the fireside. The background, composed of handkerchiefs, 
coats, shirts, hats, and other old articles "On Leaving," had 
a general dim resemblance to human listeners ; especially wiiere a 
shiny black sou'-wester suit and hat hung, looking very like a 
clumsy mariner with his back to the company, who was so curious 
to overhear, that he paused for the purpose with his coat half 
pulled on, and his shoulders up to his ears in the uncompleted action. 

The visitor first held the bottle against the light of the candle, 
and next examined the top of the cork. Satisfied that it had not 



342 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

been tampered with, he slowly took from his breastpocket a rusty 
clasp-knife, and, with a corkscrew in the handle, opened the wine. 
That done, he looked at the cork, unscrewed it from the corkscrew, 
laid each separately on the table, and, with the end of the sailor's 
knot of his neckerchief, dusted the inside of the neck of the bottle. 
All this with great deliberation. 

At fii'st Riderhood had sat with his footless glass extended at 
arm's length for filHng, while the very deliberate stranger seemed 
absorbed in his preparations. But, gradually his arm reverted 
home to him, and his glass was lowered and lowered until he 
rested it upside down upon the table. By the same degrees his 
attention became concentrated on the knife. And now, as the 
man held out the bottle to fill all round, Riderhood stood up, leaned 
over the table to look closer at the knife, and stared from it to him. 

" What's the matter 1 " asked the man. 

" Why, I know that knife ! " said Riderhood. 

"Yes, I dare say you do." 

He motioned to him to hold up his glass, and filled it. Rider- 
hood emptied it to the last drop and began again. 

" That there knife " 

" Stop," said the man composedly. " I was going to drink to 
your daughter. Your health. Miss Riderhood." 

"That knife was the knife of a seaman named George Radfoot." 

" It was." 

" That seaman was well beknown to me." 

" He was." 

" What's come to him ? " 

" Death has come to him. Death came to him in an ugly shape. 
He looked," said the man, "very horrible after it." 

"Arter what?" said Riderhood, with a frowning stare. 

"After he was killed." 

"Killed! Who killed him ?" 

Only answering with a shrug, the man filled the footless glass, 
and Riderhood emptied it : looking amazedly from his daughter to 
his visitor. 

" You don't mean to tell an honest man — " he was recommenc- 
ing, with his empty glass in his hand, when his eye became fasci- 
nated by the stranger's outer coat. He leaned across the table to 
see it nearer, touched the sleeve, turned the cuff to look at the sleeve 
lining (the man, in his perfect composure, offering not the least 
objection), and exclaimed, "It's my belief as this here coat was 
George Radfoot's too ! " 

" You arc right. He wore it the last time you ever saw him, 
and the last time you ever will sec him — in this world," 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 343 

" It's my belief you mean to tell me to my face you killed him ! " 
exclaimed Riderhood ; but, nevertheless, allowing his glass to be 
filled again. 

The man only answered with another shrug, and showed no 
symptom of confusion. 

"Wish I may die if I know what to be up to with this chap !" 
said Riderhood, after staring at him, and tossing his last glassful 
down his throat. " Let's know what to make of you. Say some- 
thing plain," 

" I will," returned the other, leaning forward across the table, 
and speaking in a low impressive voice. " What a liar you are ! " 

The honest witness rose, and made as though he would fling his 
glass in the man's face. The man not wincing, and merely shak- 
ing his forefinger half knowingly, half menacingly, the piece of 
honesty thought better of it and sat down again, putting the glass 
down too. 

" And when you went to that lawyer yonder in the Temple with 
that invented story," said the stranger, in an exasperatingly com- 
fortable sort of confidence, " you might have had your strong suspi- 
cions of a friend of your own, you know. I think you had, you 
know." 

" Me my suspicions ? Of what friend ? " 

" Tell me again whose knife was this ? " demanded the man. 

" It was possessed by, and was the property of — him as I have 
made mention on," said Riderhood, stupidly evading the actual men- 
tion of the name. 

" Tell me again whose coat was this ? " 

" That there article of clothing likeways belonged to, and was 
wore by — him as I have made mention on," was again the dull 
Old Bailey evasion. 

" I suspect that you gave him the credit of the deed, and of 
keeping cleverly out of the way. But there was small cleverness 
in his keeping out of the way. The cleverness would have been, 
to have got back for one single instant to the light of the sun." 

" Things is come to a pretty pass," growled Mr. Riderhood, rising 
to his feet, goaded to stand at bay, " when bully ers as is wearing 
dead men's clothes, and bullyers as is armed with dead men's knives, 
is to come into the houses of honest live men, getting their livings 
by the sweats of their brows, and is to make these here sort of 
charges with no rhyme and no reason, neither the one nor yet the 
other ! Why should I have had my suspicions of him 1 " 

"Because you knew him," replied the man; "because you had 
been one with him, and knew his real character under a fair outside ; 
because on the night which you had afterwards reason to believe 



344 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

to be the very night of the murder, he came in here, within an 
hour of his having left his ship in the docks, and asked you in 
what lodgings he could find room. Was there no stranger with 
him?" 

" I'll take my world-without-end everlasting Alfred David that 
YOU warn't with him," answered Riderhood. " You talk big, you 
do, but things look pretty black against yourself, to my thinking. 
You charge again' me that George Radfoot got lost sight of, and 
was no more thought of. What's that for a sailor ? Why there's 
fifty such, out of sight and out of mind, ten times as long as 
l^ii^ — through entering in different names, re-shipping when the 
out'ard voyage is made, and what not — a tuming up to light 
every day about here, and no matter made of it. Ask my daughter. 
You could go on Poll Parroting enough with her, when I warn't 
come in. Poll Parrot a little with her on this pint. You and 
your suspicions of my suspicions of him ! What are my suspicions 
of you 1 You tell me George Radfoot got killed. I ask you who 
done it, and how you know it ? You carry his knife and you wear 
his coat. I ask you how you come by 'em ! Hand over that there 
bottle ! " Here Mr. Riderhood appeared to labour under a virtuous 
delusion that it was his own property. "And you," he added, 
turning to his daughter, as he filled the footless glass, " if it warn't 
wasting good sherry wine on you, I'd chuck this at you for Poll Par- 
roting with this man. It's along of Poll Parroting that such like 
as him gets their suspicions, whereas I gets mine by argueyment, 
and being nat'rally a honest man, sweating away at the brow as a 
honest man ought." Here he filled the footless goblet again, and 
stood chewing one-half of its contents, and looking down into the 
other as he slowly rolled the wine about in the glass; while 
Pleasant, whose sympathic hair had come down on her being apos- 
trophised, rearranged it, much in the style of the tail of a horse 
when proceeding to market to be sold. 

" Well 1 Have you finished ? " asked the strange man. 

"No," said Riderhood, "I ain't. Far from it. Now then! 
I want to know how George Radfoot come by his death, and how 
you come by his kit ? " 

" If you ever do know, you won't know now." 

" And next I want to know," proceeded Riderhood, " whether 
you mean to charge that what-you-may-call-it murder " 

" Harmon murder, father," suggested Pleasant. 

"No Poll Parroting!" he vociferated in return. "Keep your 
mouth shut ! — I want to know, you sir, whether you charge 
that there crime on George Radfoot 1 " 

" If you ever do know, you won't know now." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 345 

" Perhaps you done it yourself?" said Riderliood, with a threat- 
ening action. 

" I alone know," returned the man, sternly shaking his head, 
"the mysteries of that crime. I alone know that your trumped- 
up story cannot possibly be true. I alone know that it must be 
altogether false, and that you must know it to be altogether 
false. I came here to-night to tell you so much of what I know, 
and no more." 

Mr. Riderhood, with his crooked eye upon his visitor, meditated 
for some moments, and then refilled his glass, and tipped the 
contents down his throat in three tips. 

" Shut the shop-door ! " he then said to his daughter, putting 
the glass suddenly down. " And turn the key and stand by it ! 
If you know all this, you sir," getting, as he spoke, between the 
visitor and the door, "Why han't you gone to Lawyer Light- 
wood?" 

" That, also, is alone known to myself," was the cool answer. 

" Don't you know that, if you didn't do the deed, what you say 
you could tell is worth from five to ten thousand pound ? " asked 
Riderhood. 

" I know it very well, and when I claim the money you shall 
share it." 

The honest man paused, and drew a little nearer to the visitor, 
and a little further from the door. 

"I know it," repeated the man, quietly, "as well as I know 
that you and George Radfoot were one together in more than one 
dark business ; and as well as I know that you, Roger Rider- 
hood, conspired against an innocent man for blood-money; and 
as well as I know that I can — and that I swear I will — give 
you up on both scores, and be the proof against you in my own 
person, if you defy me ! " 

" Father ! " cried Pleasant, from the door. " Don't defy him ! 
Give way to him ! Don't get into more trouble, father ! " 

" Will you leave ofi" a Poll Parroting, I ask you ? " cried Mr. 
Riderhood, half beside himself between the two. Then, propitiat- 
ingly and crawHngly : "You sir! You han't said what you 
want of me. Is it fair, is it worthy of yourself, to talk of my 
defying you afore ever you say what you want of me ? " 

" I don't want much," said the man. " This accusation of 
yours must not be left half made and half unmade. What was 
done for the blood-money must be thoroughly undone." 

"Well; but Shipmate " 

" Don't call me Shipmate," said the man. 

"Captain, then," urged Mr. Riderhood; "there! You won't 



346 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

object to Captain. It's a honourable title, and you fully look it. 
Captain ! Ain't the man dead ? Now I ask you fair. Ain't 
Gaffer dead?" 

"Well," returned the other, with impatience, "yes, he is dead. 
What then?" 

"Can words hurt a dead man, Captain? I only ask you 
fair." 

" They can hurt the memory of a dead man, and they can hurt 
his living children. How many children had this man ? " 

" Meaning Gaifer, Captain ? " 

"Of whom else are we speaking?" returned the other, with a 
movement of his foot, as if Rogue Riderhood were beginning to 
sneak before him in the body as well as the spirit, and he spurned 
him off. "I have heard of a daughter and a son. I ask for 
information ; I ask your daughter ; I prefer to speak to her. 
What children did Hexam leave ? " 

Pleasant, looking to her father for permission to reply, that 
honest man exclaimed with great bitterness : 

" Why the devil don't you answer the Captain ? You can Poll 
Parrot enough when you ain't wanted to Poll Parrot, you perwerse 
jade ! " 

Thus encouraged. Pleasant exclaimed that there were only 
Lizzie, the daughter in question, and the youth. Both very 
respectable, she added. 

"It is dreadful that any stigma should attach to them," said 
the visitor, whom the consideration rendered so uneasy that he 
rose, and paced to and fro, muttering, " Dreadful ! Unforeseen ! 
How could it be foreseen ? " Then he stopped, and asked aloud : 
"Where do they live?" 

Pleasant further explained that only the daughter had resided 
with the father at the time of his accidental death, and that she 
had immediately afterwards quitted the neighbourhood. 

"I know that," said the man, "for I have been to the place 
they dwelt in, at the time of the inquest. Could you quietly 
find out for me where she lives now ? " 

Pleasant had no dou-bt she could do that. Within what time 
did she think ? Within a day. The visitor said that was well, 
and he would return for the information, relying on its being 
obtained. To this dialogue Riderhood had attended in silence, 
and he now obsequiously bespake the Captain. 

" Captain ! Mentioning them unfort'net words of mine respect- 
ing Gaffer, it is contrairily to be bore in mind that Gaffer always 
were a precious rascal, and that his line were a thieving line. 
Like ways when I went to them two Governors, Lawyer Light wood 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 347 

and the t'other Governor, with my information, I may have 
been a little over-eager for the cause of justice, or (to put it 
another way) a little over-stimulated by them feelings which 
rouses a man up, when a pot of money is going about, to get his 
hand into that pot of money for his family's sake. Besides which, 
I think the wine of them two Governors was — I will not say a 
hocussed wine, but fur from a wine as was elthy for the mind. 
And there's another thing to be remembered, Captain. Did I 
stick to them words when Gaffer was no more, and did I say 
bold to them two Governors, 'Governors both, wot I informed 
I still inform ; wot was took down I hold to ? ' No. I says, 
frank and open — no shuffling, mind you, Captain ! — 'I may have 
been mistook, I've been a thinking of it, it mayn't have been took 
down correct on this and that, and I won't swear to thick and 
thin, I'd rayther forfeit your good opinions than do it.' And so 
far as I know," concluded Mr. Riderhood, by way of proof and 
evidence to character, " I have actiwally forfeited the good opinions 
of several persons — even your own. Captain, if I understand your 
words — but I'd sooner do it than be forswore. There ; if 
that's conspiracy, call me conspirator." 

" You shall sign," said the visitor, taking very little heed of this 
oration, " a statement that it was all utterly false, and the poor 
girl shall have it. I will bring it with me for your signature, 
when I come again." 

" When might you be expected. Captain ? " inquired Riderhood, 
again dubiously getting between him and the door. 

" Quite soon enough for you. I shall not disappoint you; don't 
be afraid." 

" Might you be inclined to leave any name. Captain 1 " 

" No, not at all. I have no such intention." 

" ' Shall ' is summ'at of a hard word, Captain," urged Riderhood, 
still feebly dodging between him and the door, as he advanced. 
"When you say a man 'shall' sign this and that and t'other. 
Captain, you order him about in a grand sort of a way. Don't it 
seem so to yourself? " 

The man stood still, and angrily fixed him with his eyes. 

" Father, father ! " entreated Pleasant, from the door, with her 
disengaged hand nervously trembling at her lips; "don't ! Don't 
get into trouble any more ! " 

" Hear me out, Captain, hear me out ! All I was wishing to 
mention. Captain, afore you took your departer," said the sneaking 
Mr. Riderhood, falling out of his path, "was, your handsome words 
relating to the reward." 

" When I claim it," said the man, in a tone which seemed to 



348 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

leave some such words as "you dog," very distinctly understood, 
"you shall share it." 

Looking steadfastly at Riderhood, he once more said in a low 
voice, this time with a grim sort of admiration of him as a perfect 
piece of evil, " What a liar you are ! " and, nodding his head twice 
or thrice over the compliment, passed out of the shop. But to 
Pleasant he said good night kindly. 

The honest man who gained his living by the sweat of his brow 
remained in a state akin to stupefaction, until the footless glass 
and the unfinished bottle conveyed themselves into his mind. 
From his mind he conveyed them into his hands, and so conveyed 
the last of the wine into his stomach. When that was done, he 
awoke to a clear perception that Poll Parroting was solely charge- 
able with what had passed. Therefore, not to be remiss in his 
duty as a father, he threw a pair of sea-boots at Pleasant, which 
she ducked to avoid, and then cried, poor thing, using her hair for 
a pocket-handkerchief. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

A SOLO AND A DUETT. 

The wind was blowing so hard when the visitor came out at the 
shop-door into the darkness and dirt of Limehouse Hole, that it 
almost blew him in again. Doors were slamming violently, lamps 
were flickering or blown out, signs were rocking in their frames, 
the water of the kennels, mnd-dispersed, flew about in drops like 
rain. Indiff'erent to the weather, and even preferring it to better 
weather for its clearance of the streets, the man looked about him 
with a scrutinising glance. " Thus much I know," he murmured. 
"I have never been here since that night, and never was here 
before that night, but thus much I recognise. I wonder which 
way did we take when we came out of that shop. We turned to 
the right as I have turned, but I can recall no more. Did we go 
by this alley ? Or down that little lane ? " 

He tried both, but both confused him equally, and he came 
straying back to the same spot. "I remember there were poles 
pushed out of upper windows on which clothes were diying, and 
I remember a low public-house, and the sound flowing do\vn a 
narrow passage belonging to it of the scraping of a fiddle and the 
shuffling of feet. But here are all these things in the lane, and here 
are all these things in the alley. And I have nothing else in my 
mind but a wall, a dark doorway, a flight of stairs, and a room." 

He tried a new direction, but made nothing of it; walls, dark 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 349 

doorways, flights of stairs and rooms, were too abundant. And, 
like most people so puzzled, he again and again described a circle, 
and found himself at the point from which he had begun. " This 
is like what I have read in narratives of escape from prison," said 
he, "where the little track of the fugitives in the night always 
seems to take the shape of the great round world, on which they 
wander ; as if it were a secret law." 

Here he ceased to be the oakum-headed, oakum- whiskered man 
on whom Miss Pleasant Riderhood had looked, and, allowing for 
his being still wrapped in a nautical overcoat, became as like that 
same lost wanted Mr. Julius Handford, as never man was like 
another in this world. In the breast of the coat he stowed the 
bristling hair and whisker, in a moment, as the favouring wind 
went with him down a solitary place that it had swept clear of 
passengers. ' Yet in that same moment he was the Secretary also, 
Mr. Boffin's Secretary. For John Rokesmith, too, was as like that 
same lost wanted Mr. Julius Handford as never man was like 
another in this world. 

"I have no clue to the scene of my death," said he. " Not that 
it matters now. But having risked discovery by venturing here at 
all, I should have been glad to track some part of the way." With 
which singular words he abandoned his search, came up out of Lime- 
house Hole, and took the way past Limehouse Church. At the 
great iron gate of the churchyard he stopped and looked in. He 
looked up at the high tower spectrally resisting the wind, and he 
looked round at the white tombstones, like enough to be dead in 
their winding-sheets, and he counted the nine tolls of the clock-bell. 

"It is a sensation not experienced by many mortals," said he, 
"to be looking into a churchyard on a wild windy night, and to 
feel that I no more hold a place among the living than these dead 
do, and even to know that I lie buried somewhere else, as they lie 
buried here. Nothing uses me to it. A spirit that was once a 
man could hardly feel stranger or lonelier, going unrecognised 
among mankind than I feel. 

"But this is the fanciful side of the situation. It has a real 
side, so difficult that, though I think of it every day, I never thor- 
oughly think it out. Now, let me determine to think it out as I 
walk home. I know I evade it, as many men — perhaps most men 
— do evade thinking their way through their greatest perplexity. 
I will try to pin myself to mine. Don't evade it, John Harmon ; 
don't evade it ; think it out ! 

" When I came back to England, attracted to the country Avith 
which I had none but most miserable associations, by the accounts 



350 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

of my fine inheritance that found me abroad, I came back, shrink- 
ing from my father's money, shrinking from my father's memory, 
mistrustful of being forced on a mercenary wife, mistrustful of my 
father's intention in thrusting that marriage on me, mistrustful that 
I was already growing avaricious, mistmstful that I was slackening 
in gratitude to the two dear noble honest friends who had made the 
only sunlight of my childish life or that of my heartbroken sister. I 
came back timid, divided in my mind, afraid of myself and every- 
body here, knowing of nothing but wretchedness that my father's 
wealth had ever brought about. Now, stop, and so far think it out, 
John Harmon. Is that so ? That is exactly so. 

" On board serving as third mate was George Radfoot. I knew 
nothing of him. His name first became known to me about a week 
before we sailed, through my being accosted by one of the ship 
agent's clerks as ' Mr. Radfoot.' It was one day when I had gone 
aboard to look to my preparations, and the clerk, coming behind 
me as I stood on deck, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, ' Mr. 
Radfoot, look here,' referring to some papers that he had in his 
hand. And my name first became known to Radfoot, through 
another clerk within a day or two, and while the ship was yet in 
port, coming up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder and 

beginning, 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Harmon .' I believe we 

were alike in bulk and stature, but not otherwise, and that we 
were not strikingly alike, even in those respects, when we were 
together and could be compared. 

" However, a sociable word or two on these mistakes became an 
easy introduction between us, and the weather was hot, and he 
helped me to a cool cabin on deck alongside his own, and his first 
school had been at Brussels as mine had been, and he had learnt 
French as I had learnt it, and he had a little history of himself to 
relate — God only knows how much of it true, and how much of 
it false — that had its likeness to mine. I had been a seaman too. 
So we got to be confidential together, and the more easily yet, 
because he and every one on board had known by general rumour 
what I was making the voyage to England for. By such degrees 
and means, he came to the knowledge of my uneasiness of mind, 
and of it setting at that time in the direction of desiring to see and 
form some judgment of my allotted wife, before she could possibly 
know me for myself; also to try Mrs. Boflin ffnd give her a glad 
surprise. So the plot was made out of our getting common sailor's 
dresses (as he was able to guide me about London), and throwing 
ourselves in Bella Wilfer's neighbourhood, and trying to put our- 
selves in her way, and doing whatever chance might favour on the 
spot, and seeing what came of it. If notliiug came of it, I should 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 351 

be no worse off, and there would merely be a short delay in my 
presenting myself to Lightwood. I have all these facts right ? Yes. 
They are all accurately right. 

" His advantage in all this was, that for a time I was to be lost. 
It might be for a day or for two days, but I must be lost sight of 
on landing, or there would be recognition, anticipation, and failure. 
Therefore, I disembarked with my valise in my hand — as Potter- 
son the steward and Mr. Jacob Kibble my fellow-passenger after- 
wards remembered — and waited for him in the dark by that veiy 
Limehouse Church which is now behind me. 

" As I had always shunned the port of London, I only knew the 
church through his pointing out its spire from on board. Perhaps 
I might recall, if it were any good to try, the way by which I went 
to it alone from the river ; but how we two went from it to Rider- 
hood's shop, I don't know — any more than I know what turns we 
took and doubles we made, after we left it. The way was purposely 
confused, no doubt. 

" But let me go on thinking the facts out, and avoid confusing 
them with my speculations. Whether he took me by a straight 
way or a crooked way, what is that to the purpose now 1 Steady, 
John Harmon. 

"When we stopped at Riderhood's, and he asked that scoundrel 
a question or two, purporting to refer only to the lodging-houses in 
which there was accommodation for us, had I the least suspicion 
of him ? None. Certainly none until afterwards when I held the 
clue. I think he must have got from Riderhood in a paper the 
drug, or whatever it was, that afterwards stupefied me, but I am 
far from sure. All I felt safe in charging on him to-night was old 
companionship in villainy between them. Their undisguised inti- 
macy, and the character I now know Riderhood to bear, made that 
not at all adventurous. But I am not clear about the drug. Think- 
ing out the circumstances on which I found my suspicion, they are 
only two. One : I remember his changing a small folded paper 
from one pocket to another, after we came out, which he had not 
touched before. Two : I now know Riderhood to have been pre- 
viously taken up for being concerned in the robbery of an unlucky 
seaman, to whom some such poison had been given. 

"It is my conviction that we cannot have gone a mile from that 
shop, before we came to the wall, the dark doorway, the flight of 
stairs, and the room. The night was particularly dark, and it rained 
hard. As I think the circumstances back, I hear the rain splash- 
ing on the stone pavement of the passage, which was not under 
cover. The room overlooked the river, or a dock, or a creek, and 
the tide was out. Being possessed of the time down to that point, 



352 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

I know by the hour that it must have been about low water ; but 
while the cofiee was getting ready, I drew back the curtain (a dark- 
brown curtain), and, looking out, knew by the kind of reflection 
below, of the few neighbouring lights, that they were reflected in 
tidal mud. 

" He had carried under his arm a canvas bag, containing a suit 
of his clothes. I had no change of outer clothes with me, as I was 
to buy slops. 'You are very wet, Mr. Harmon,' — I can hear him 
saying — 'and I am quite dry under this good waterproof coat. 
Put on these clothes of mine. You may find on trying them that 
they will answer your purpose to-morrow, as well as the slops you 
mean to buy, or better. While you change, I'll hurry the hot 
coffee.' When he came back, T had his clothes on, and there was 
a black man with him, wearing a linen jacket, like a steward, who 
put the smoking coffee on the table ui a tray and never looked 
at me. I am so far literal and exact 1 Literal and exact, I am 
certain. 

"Now, I pass to sick and deranged impressions; they are so 
strong, that I rely upon them ; but there are spaces between them 
that I know nothing about, and they are not pervaded by any idea 
of time. 

" I had drunk some coffee, when to my sense of sight he began 
to swell immensely and something urged me to rush at him. We 
had a struggle near the door. He got from me, through my not 
knowing where to strike, in the whirling round of the room, and 
the flashing of flames of fire between us. I dropped down. Lying 
helpless on the ground, I was turned over by a foot. I was dragged 
by the neck into a corner. I heard men speak together. I was 
turned over by other feet. I saw a figure like myself lying dressed 
in my clothes on a bed. What might have been, for anything I 
knew, a silence of days, weeks, months, years, was broken by a vio- 
lent wrestling of men all over the room. The figure like myself 
was assailed, and my valise was in its hand. I was trodden upon 
and fallen over. I heard a noise of blows, and thought it was a 
wood-cutter cutting down a tree. I could not have said that my 
name was John Harmon — I could not have thought it — I didn't 
know it — but when I heard the blows, I thought of the wood- 
cutter and his axe, ..nd had some dead idea that I was lying in a 
forest. 

" This is still correct ? Still correct, with the exception that I 
cannot possibly express it to myself without using the word I. But 
it was not I. There was no such thing as I, within my knowl- 
edge. 

"It was only after a downward slide through something like a 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 353 

tube, and then 9- great noise and a sparkling and a crackling as of 
fires, that the consciousness came upon me, ' This is John Harmon 
drowning ! John Harmon, struggle for your life. John Harmon, 
call on Heaven and save yourself ! ' I think I cried it out aloud 
in a great agony, and then a heavy horrid unintelligible something 
vanished, and it was I who was struggling there alone in the 
water. 

" I was very weak and faint, frightfully oppressed with drowsi- 
ness, and driving fast with the tide. Looking over the black 
water, I saw the lights racing past me on the two banks of the 
river, as if they were eager to be gone and leave me dying in the 
dark. The tide was running down, but I knew nothing of up or 
down then. When, guiding myself safely with Heaven's assistance 
before the fierce set of the water, I at last caught at a boat moored, 
one of a tier of boats at a causeway, I was sucked under her, and 
came up, only just alive, on the other side. 

" Was I long in the water ? Long enough to be chilled to the 
heart, but I don't know how long. Yet the cold was merciful, for 
it was the cold night air and the rain that restored me from a 
swoon on the stones of the causeway. They naturally supposed me 
to have toppled in, drunk, when I crept to the public-house it 
belonged to ; for I had no notion where I was, and could not articu- 
late — through the poison that had made me insensible having 
affected my speech — and I supposed the night to be the previous 
night, as it was still dark and raining. But I had lost twenty-four 
hours. 

" I have checked the calculation often, and it must have been 
two nights that I lay recovering in that public-house. Let me 
see. Yes. I am sure it was while I lay in that bed there, that 
the thought entered my head of turning the danger I had passed 
through, to the account of being for some time supposed to have 
disappeared mysteriously, and of proving Bella. The dread of our 
being forced on one another, and perpetuating the fate that seemed 
to have fallen on my father's riches — tht fate that they should 
lead to nothing but evil — was strong upon the moral timidity that 
dates from my childhood with my poor sister. 

" As to this hour I cannot understand that side of the river 
where I recovered the shore, being the opposite side to that on 
which I was ensnared, I shall never understand it now. Even at 
this moment, while I leave the river behind me, going home, I can- 
not conceive that it rolls between me and that spot, or that the 
sea is where it is. But this is not thinking it out ; this is making 
a leap to the present time. 

" I could not have done it, but for the fortune in the waterproof 
2 A 








MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 355 

belt around my body. Not a great fortune, forty and odd pounds 
for the inheritor of a hundred and odd thousand! But it was 
enough. Without it, I must have disclosed myself. Without it, 
I could never have gone to that Exchequer Coffee House, or taken 
Mrs. Wilfer's lodgings. 

" Some twelve days I lived at that hotel, before the night when 
I saw the corpse of Radfoot at the Police Station. The inexpres- 
sible mental horror that I laboured under, as one of the conse- 
quences of the poison, makes the interval seem greatly longer, 
but I know it cannot have been longer. That suffering has gradu- 
ally weakened and weakened since, and has only come upon me by 
starts, and I hope I am free from it now, but even now, I have 
sometimes to think, constrain myself, and stop before speaking, or 
I could not say the words I want to say. 

" Again I ramble away from thinking it out to the end. It is 
not so far to the end that I need be tempted to break off. Now, 
on straight ! 

" I examined the newspapers every day for tidings that I was 
missing, but saw none. Going out that night to walk (for I kept 
retired while it was light), I found a crowd assembled round a 
placard posted at Whitehall. It described myself, John Harmon, 
as found dead and mutilated in the river under circumstances of 
strong suspicion, described my dress, described the papers in my 
pockets, and stated where I was lying for recognition. In a wild in- 
cautious way I hurried there, and there — with the horror of the 
death I had escaped, before my eyes in its most appalling shape, 
added to the inconceivable horror tormenting me at that time when 
the poisonous stuff was strongest on me — I perceived that Radfoot 
had been murdered by some unknown hands for the money for 
which he would have murdered me, and that probably we had both 
been shot into the river from the same dark place into the same 
dark tide, when the stream ran deep and strong. 

" That night I almost gave up my mystery, though I suspected 
no one, could offer no information, knew absolutely nothing save 
that the murdered man was not I, but Radfoot. Next day while 
I hesitated, and next day while I hesitated, it seemed as if the 
whole country were determined to have me dead. The Inquest 
declared me dead, the Government proclaimed me dead ; I could 
not listen at my fireside, for five minutes to the outer noises, but 
it was borne into my ears that I was dead. 

" So John Harmon died, and Julius Handford disappeared, 
and John Rokesmith was born. John Rokesmith's intent to-night 
has been to repair a wrong that he never could have imagined pos- 
sible, coming to his ears through the Lightwood talk related to 



356 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

him, and which he is bound by every consideration to remedy. In 
that intent John Rokesmith will persevere, as his^duty is. 

" Now, is it all thought out ? All to this 'time ? Nothing 
omitted? No, nothing. But beyond this time? To think it 
out through the future, is a harder though a much shorter task 
than to think it out through the past. John Harmon is dead. 
Should John Harmon come to life ? 

" If yes, why ? If no, why ? 

" Take yes, first. To enlighten human Justice concerning the 
offence of one far beyond it, who may have a living mother. To 
enlighten it with the lights of a stone passage, a flight of stairs, a 
brown window-curtain, and a black man. To come into possession 
of my father's money, and with it sordidly to buy a beautiful 
creature whom I love — I cannot help it ; reason has nothing to 
do with it ; I love her against reason — but who would as soon love 
me for my own sake, as she would love the beggar at the corner. 
What a use for the money, and how worthy of its old misuses ! 

"Now, take no. The reasons why John Harmon should not 
come to life. Because he has passively allowed these dear old 
faithful friends to pass into possession of the property. Because 
he sees them happy with it, making a good use of it, effacing the 
old rust and tarnish on the money. Because they have virtually 
adopted Bella, and will provide for her. Because there is affection 
enough in her nature, and warmth enough in her heart to develop 
into something enduringly good, under favourable conditions. 
Because her faults have been intensified by her place in my father's 
will, and she is already growing better. Because her marriage 
with John Harmon, after what I have heard from her own lips, 
would be a shocking mockery, of which both she and I must always 
be conscious, and which would degrade her in her mind, and me in 
mine, and each of us in the other's. Because if John Harmon comes 
to life and does not marry her, the property falls into the very 
hands that hold it now. 

" What would I have 1 Dead, I have found the true friends of 
my lifetime still as true as tender and as faithful as when I was 
alive, and making my memory an incentive to good actions done in 
my name. Dead, I have found them when they might have 
slighted my name, and passed greedily over my grave to ease and 
wealth, lingering by the way, like single-hearted children, to recall 
their love for me when I was a poor frightened child. Dead, I 
have heard from the woman who would have been my wife if I had 
lived, the revolting truth that I should have purchased her, caring 
nothing for me, as a Sultan buys a slave. 

" What would I have ? If the dead could know, or do know 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 357 

how the living use them, who among the hosts of dead has found 
a more disinterested fidelity on earth than 1 1 Is not that enough 
for me ? If I had come back, these noble creatures would have 
welcomed me, wept over me, given up everything to me with joy. 
I did not come back, and they have passed unspoiled into my 
place. Let them rest in it, and let Bella rest in hers. 

" What course for me then 1 This, To live the same quiet Sec- 
retary life, carefully avoiding chances of recognition, until they 
shall have become more accustomed to their altered state, and 
until the great swarm of swindlers under many names shall have 
found newer prey. By that time, the method I am establish- 
ing through all the affairs, and with which I will every day take 
new pains to make them both famihar, will be, I may hope, a 
machine in such working order as that they can keep it going. I 
know I need but ask of their generosity, to have. When the 
right time comes, I will ask no more than will replace me in my 
former path of life, and John Rokesmith shall tread it as content- 
edly as he naay. But John Harmon shall come back no more. 

" That I may never, in the days to come afar off, have any weak 
misgiving that Bella might, in any contingency, have taken me for 
my own sake if I had plainly asked lier, I 7mll plainly ask her : 
proving beyond all question what I already know too well. And 
now it is all thought out, from the beginning to the end, and my 
mind is easier." 

So deeply engaged had the living-dead man been, in thus com- 
muning with himself, that he had regarded neither the wind nor 
the way, and had resisted the former as instinctively as he had 
pursued the latter. But being now come into the City, where 
there was a coach-stand, he stood irresolute whether to go to his 
lodgings, or to go first to Mr. Boffin's house. He decided to go 
round by the house, arguing, as he carried his overcoat upon his 
arm, that it was less likely to attract notice if left there, than if 
taken to Holloway : both Mrs. Wilfer and Miss Lavinia being 
ravenously curious touching every article of which the lodger stood 
possessed. 

Arriving at the house, he found that Mr. and Mrs. BofRn were 
out, but that Miss Wilfer was in the drawing-room. Miss Wilfer 
had remained at home, in consequence of not feeling very well, and 
had inquired in the evening if Mr. Rokesmith were in his room. 

" Make my compliments to Miss Wilfer, and say I am here now." 

Miss Wilfer's compliments came down in return, and if it were 
not too much trouble, would Mr. Rokesmith be so kind as to come 
up before he went 1 



358 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

It was not too much trouble, and Mr. Rokesmith came up. 

Oh, she looked very pretty, she looked very, very pretty ! If 
the father of the late John Harmon had but left his money uncon- 
ditionally to his son, and if his son had but lighted on this lovable 
girl for himself, and had the happiness to make her loving as well 
as lovable ! 

" Dear me ! Are you not well, Mr. Rokesmith ? " 

"Yes, quite well. I was sorry to hear, when I came in, that 
you were not." 

" A mere nothing. I had a headache — gone now — and was 
not quite fit for a hot theatre, so I stayed at home. I asked you 
if you were not well, because you looked so white." 

"Do I? I have had a busy evening." 

She was on a low ottoman before the fire, with a little shining 
jewel of a table, and her book and her work, beside her. Ah ! 
what a dilferent life the late John Harmon's, if it had been his 
happy privilege to take his place upon that ottoman, and draw his 
arm about that waist, and say, " I hope the time has been long 
without me % What a Home Goddess you look, my darling ! " 

But, the present John Rokesmith, far removed from the late 
John Harmon, remained standing at a distance. A little distance 
in respect of space, but a great distance in respect of separation. 

" Mr. Rokesmith," said Bella, taking up her work, and inspecting 
it all round the corners, " I wanted to say something to you when 
I could have the opportunity, as an explanation why I was rude 
to you the other day. You have no right to think ill of me, sir." 

The sharp little way in which she darted a look at him, half 
sensitively injured, and half pettishly, would have been very much 
admired by the late John Harmon. 

" You don't know how well I think of you. Miss Wilfer." 

" Truly you must have a very high opinion of me, Mr. Roke- 
smith, when you believe that in prosperity I neglect and forget my 
old home." 

"Do I believe so?" 

•''You did., sir, at any rate," returned Bella. 

" I took the liberty of reminding you of a little omission into 
which you had fallen — insensibly and naturally fallen. It was 
no more than that." 

"And I beg leave to ask you, Mr. Rokesmith," said Bella, "why 
you took that liberty % — I hope there is no offence in the phrase ; 
it is your own, remember." 

"Because I am truly, deeply, profoundly interested in you, 
Miss Wilfer. Because I wish to see you always at your best. 
Because I shall I go on % " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 359 

"No, sir," returned Bella, with a burning face, "you have said 
more than enough. I beg that you will not go on. If you have 
any generosity, any honour, you will say no more." 

The late John Harmon, looking at the proud face with the 
downcast eyes, and at the quick breathing as it stirred the fall 
of bright brown hair over the beautiful neck, would probably have 
remained silent. 

" I wish to speak to you, sir," said Bella, " once for all, and I 
don't know how to do it. I have sat here all this evening, wishing 
to speak to you, and determining to speak to you, and feeling that 
I must. I beg for a moment's time." 

He remained silent, and she remained with her face averted, 
sometimes making a slight movement as if she would turn and 
speak. At length she did so. 

" You know how I am situated here, sir, and you know how I 
am situated at home. I must speak to you for myself, since 
there is no one about me whom I could ask to do so. It is not 
generous in you, it is not honourable in you, to conduct yourself 
towards me as you do." 

" Is it ungenerous or dishonourable to be devoted to you ; fasci- 
nated by you ? " 

" Preposterous ! " said Bella. 

The late John Harmon might have thought it rather a con- 
temptuous and lofty word of rei3udiation. 

"I now feel obliged to go on," pursued the Secretary, "though 
it were only in self-explanation and self-defence. I hope. Miss 
Wilfer, that it is not unpardonable — even in me — to make an 
honest declaration of an honest devotion to you." 

" An honest declaration ! " repeated Bella, with emphasis. 

"Is it otherwise 1 " 

" I must request, sir," said Bella, taking refuge in a touch of 
kindly resentment, " that I may not be questioned. You must 
excuse me if I decline to be cross-examined." 

" Oh, Miss Wilfer, this is hardly charitable. I ask you nothing 
but what your own emphasis suggests. However, I waive even 
that question. But what I have declared, I take my stand by. 
I cannot recall the avowal of my earnest and deep attachment to 
you, and I do not recall it." 

"I reject it, sir," said Bella. 

"I should be blind and deaf if I were not prepared for the 
reply. Forgive my offence, for it carries its punishment with it." 

" What punishment 1 " asked Bella. 

" Is my present endurance none ? But excuse me ; I did not 
mean to cross-examine you again." 



360 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"You take advantage of a hasty word of mine," said Bella, with 
a little sting of self-reproach, "to make me seem — I don't know 
what. I spoke without consideration when I used it. If that 
was bad, I am sorry; but you repeat it after consideration, and 
that seems to me to be at least no better. For the rest, I beg it 
may be understood, Mr, Rokesmith, that there is an end of this 
between us, now and for ever." 

" Now and for ever," he repeated. 

" Yes. I appeal to you, sir," proceeded Bella, with increasing 
spirit, " not to pursue me. I appeal to you not to take advantage 
of your position in this house to make my position in it distressing 
and disagreeable. I appeal to you to discontinue your habit of 
making your misplaced attentions as plain to Mrs. Boffin as to me." 

" Have I done so ? " 

"I should think you have," reiolied Bella. "In any case it is 
not your fault if you have not, Mr. Rokesmith." 

" I hope you are wrong in that impression. I should be very 
sorry to have justified it. I think I have not. For the future 
there is no apprehension. It is all over." 

" I am much relieved to hear it," said Bella. " I have far other 
views in life, and why should you waste your own ? " 

" Mine ! " said the Secretary. " My life ! " 

His curious tone caused Bella to glance at the curious smile with 
which he said it. It was gone as he glanced back. " Pardon me, 
Miss Wilfer," he proceeded, when their eyes met; "you have used 
some hard words, for which I do not doubt you have a justification 
in your mind, that I do not understand. Ungenerous and dishon- 
ourable in what ? " 

" I would rather not be asked," said Bella, haughtily looking 
down. 

" I would rather not ask, but the question is imposed upon me. 
Kindly explain ; or if not kindly, justly." 

" Oh, sir ! " said Bella, raising her eyes to his, after a little 
struggle to forbear, "is it generous and honourable to use the 
power here which your favour with Mr. and Mrs. Boffin and your 
ability in your place give you, against me ? " 

"Against you? " 

"Is it generous and honourable to form a plan for gradually 
bringing their influence to bear upon a suit which I have shown 
you that I do not like, and which I tell you that I utterly reject 1 " 

The late John Harmon could have borne a good deal, but he 
would have been cut to the heart by such a suspicion as this. 

" Would it be generous and honourable to step into your place 
— if you did so, for I don't know that you did, and I hope you did 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 361 

not — anticipating, or knowing beforehand, that I should come 
here, and designing to take me at this disadvantage ? " 

" This mean and cruel disadvantage," said the Secretary. 

"Yes," assented Bella. 

The Secretary kept silence for a little while ; then merely said, 
"You are wholly mistaken, Miss Wilfer; wonderfully mistaken. 
I cannot say, however, that it is your fault. If I deserve better 
things of you, you do not know it." 

"At least, sir," retorted Bella, with her old indignation rising, 
"you know the history of my being here at all. I have heard Mr. 
Boffin say that you are master of every line and word of that 
will, as you are master of all his affairs. And was it not enough 
that I should have been willed away, like a horse, or a dog, or a 
bird ; but must you too begin to dispose of me in your mind, and 
speculate in me, as soon as I had ceased to be the talk and the 
laugh of the town ? Am I for ever to be made the property of 
strangers 1 " 

"Believe me," returned the Secretary, "you are wonderfully 
mistaken." 

" I should be glad to know it," answered Bella. 

" I doubt if you ever will. Good night. Of course I shall be 
careful to conceal any traces of this interview from Mr. and Mrs. 
Boffin, as long as I remain here. Trust me, what you have com- 
plained of is at an end for ever." 

" I am glad I have spoken, then, Mr. Rokesmith. It has been 
painful and difficult, but it is done. If I have hurt you, I hope 
you will forgive me. I am inexperienced and impetuous, and I 
have been a little spoilt ; but I really am not so bad as I dare say 
I appear, or as you think me." 

He quitted the room when Bella had said this, relenting in her 
wilful inconsistent way. Left alone, she threw herself back on her 
ottoman, and said, " I didn't know the lovely woman was such a 
Dragon ! " Then, she got up and looked in the glass, and said to 
her image, "You have been positively swelling your features, you 
little fool ! " Then, she took an impatient walk to the other end of 
the room and back, and said, "I wish Pa was here to have a talk 
about an avaricious marriage; but he is better aw\ay, poor dear, 
for I know I should pull his hair if he was here." And then she 
threw her work away, and threw her book after it, and sat down 
and hummed a tune, and hummed it out of tune, and quarrelled 
with it. 

And John Rokesmith, what did he 1 

He went down to his room, and buried John Harmon many 
additional fathoms deep. He took his hat, and walked out, and, 



362 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

as he went to Holloway or anywhere else — not at all mindmg 
where — heaped mounds ujDon mounds of earth over John Harmon's 
grave. His walking did not bring him home until the dawn of 
day. And so busy had he been all night, piling and piling weights 
upon weights of earth above John Harmon's grave, that by that 
time John Harmon lay buried under a whole Alpine range ; and 
still the Sexton Rokesmith accumulated mountains over him, light- 
ening his labour with the dirge, " Cover him, crush him, keep him 
down!" 



CHAPTER XIV. 

STEONG OF PURPOSE. 

The sexton-task of piling earth above John Harmon all night 
long, was not conducive to sound sleep ; but Rokesmith had some 
broken morning rest, and rose strengthened in his purpose. It 
was all over now. No ghost should trouble Mr. and Mrs. Boffin's 
peace ; invisible and voiceless, the ghost should look on for a little 
while longer at the state of existence out of which it had departed, 
and then should for ever ceasa to haunt the scenes in which it had 
no place. 

He went over it all again. He had lapsed into the condition in 
which he found himself, as many a man lapses into many a condi- 
tion, without perceiving the accumulative power of its separate 
circumstances. When in the distrust engendered by his wretched 
childhood and the action for evil — never yet for good within his 
knowledge then — of his father and his father's wealth on all 
within their influence, he conceived the idea of his first deception, 
it was meant to be harmless, it was to last but a few hours or days, 
it was to involve in it only the girl so capriciously forced upon him, 
and upon whom he was so capriciously forced, and it was honestly 
meant well towards her. For, if he had found her unhappy in the 
prospect of that marriage (through her heart inclining to another 
man or for any other cause), he would seriously have said : " This 
is another of the old perverted uses of the misery-making money. 
I will let it go to my and my sister's only protectors and friends." 
When the snare into which he fell so outstripped his first intention 
as that he found himself placarded by the police authorities upon 
the London walls for dead, he confusedly accepted the aid that fell 
upon him, without considering how firmly it must seem to fix the 
Boffins in their accession to the fortune. When he saw them and 
knew them, and even from his vantage-ground of inspection could 
find no flaw in them, he asked himself, "And shall I come to life 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 363 

to dispossess such people as these ? " There was no good to set 
against the putting of them to that hard proof. He had heard 
from Bella's own lips when he stood tapping at the door on that 
night of his taking the lodgings, that the marriage would have 
been on her part thoroughly mercenary. He had since tried her, 
in his own unknown person and supposed station, and she not only 
rejected his advances but resented them. Was it for him to have 
the shame of buying her, or the meanness of punishing her ? Yet, 
by coming to life and accepting the condition of the inheritance, he 
must do the former ; and by coming to life and rejecting it, he must 
do the latter. 

Another consequence that he had never foreshadowed, was the 
implication of an innocent man in his supposed murder. He 
would obtain complete retractation from the accuser, and set the 
wrong right ; but clearly the wrong could never have been done 
if he had never planned a deception. Then, whatever inconven- 
ience or distress of mind the deception cost him, it was manful 
repentantly to accept as among its consequences, and make no 
complaint. 

Thus John Kokesmith in the morning, and it buried John 
Harmon still many fathoms deeper than he had been buried in 
the night. 

Going out earlier than he was accustomed to do, he encountered 
the cherub at the door. The cherub's way was for a certain 
space his way, and they walked together. 

It was impossible not to notice the change in the cherub's 
appearance. The cherub felt very conscious of it, and modestly 
remarked : "A present from my daughter Bella, Mr. Rokesmith." 

The words gave the Secretary a stroke of pleasure, for he 
remembered the fifty pounds, and he still loved the girl. No 
doubt it was .very weak — it always is very weak, some authori- 
ties hold — but he loved the girl, 

" I don't know whether you happen to have read many books 
of African Travel, Mr. Rokesmith?" said R. W. 

" I have read several." 

" Well, you know, there's usually a King George, or a King Boy, 
or a King Sambo, or a King Bill, or Bull, or Rum, or Junk, or 
whatever name the sailors may have happened to give him." 

" Where ? " asked Rokesmith. 

" Anywhere. Anywhere in Africa, I mean. Pretty well every- 
where, I may say ; for black kings are cheap — and / think " 
— said R. W., with an apologetic air, " nasty." 

" I am much of your opinion, Mr. Wilfer. You were going to 
say — ?" 



364 OUK MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" I was going to say, the king is generally dressed in a London 
hat only, or a Manchester pair of braces, or one epaulette, or an 
uniform coat, with his legs in the sleeves, or something of that 
kind." 

"Just so," said the Secretary. 

"In confidence, I assure you, Mr. Rokesmith," observed the 
cheerful cherub, " that when more of my family w^ere at home 
and to be provided for, I used to remind myself immensely of 
that king. You have no idea, as a single man, of the difficulty 
I have had in wearing more than one good article at a time." 

" I can easily believe it, Mr. Wilfer." 

" I only mention it," said R. W. in the warmth of his heart, 
" as a proof of the amiable, delicate, and considerate affection 
of my daughter Bella. If she had been a little spoilt, I couldn't 
have thought so very much of it, under the circumstances. But 
no, not a bit. And she is so very pretty ! I hope you agree 
with me in finding her very pretty, Mr. Rokesmith ? " 

" Certainly I do. Every one must." 

"I hope so," said the cherub. "Indeed, I have no doubt of 
it. This is a great advancement for her in life, Mr. Rokesmith. 
A great opening of her prospects ! " 

" Miss Wilfer could have no better friends than Mr. and Mrs. 
Boffin." 

" Impossible ! " said the gratified cherub. " Really I begin 
to think things are very well as they are. If Mr. John Harmon 
had lived " 

" He is better dead," said the Secretary. 

" No, I won't go so far as to say that," urged the cherub, a little 
remonstrant against the very decisive and unpitying tone ; " but 
he mightn't have suited Bella, or Bella mightn't have suited him, 
or fifty things, whereas now I hope she can choose for herself." 

"Has she — as you place the confidence in me of speaking 
on the subject, you will excuse my asking — has she — perhaps 

— chosen ? " faltered the Secretary. 
" Oh dear no ! " returned R. W. 

"Young ladies sometimes," Rokesmith hinted, "choose with- 
out mentioning their choice to their fathers." 

"Not in this case, Mr. Rokesmith. Between my daughter 
Bella and me there is a regular league and covenant of confidence. 
It was ratified only the other day. The ratification dates from 

— these," said the cherub, giving a little pull at the lappels of 
his coat and the pockets of his trousers. " Oh no, she has not 
chosen. To be sure, young George Sampson, in the days when 
Mr. John Harmon " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 365 

" Who I wish had never been born ! " said the Secretary, with 
a gloomy brow. 

R. W. looked at him with surprise, as thinking he had con- 
tracted an unaccountable spite against the poor deceased, and 
continued, "In the days when Mr. John Harmon was being sought 
out, young George Sampson certainly was hovering about Bella, and 
Bella let him hover. But it never was seriously thought of, and 
it's still less than ever to be thought of now. For Bella is ambi- 
tious, Mr. Rokesmith, and I think I may predict will marry 
fortune. This time, you see, she will have the person and the 
property before her together, and will be able to make her choice 
with her eyes open. This is my road. I am very sorry to part 
company so soon. Good morning, sir ! " 

The Secretary pursued his way, not very much elevated in 
spirits by this conversation, and, arriving at the Boffin mansion, 
found Betty Higden waiting for him. 

"I should thank you kindly, sir," said Betty, "if I might 
make so bold as have a word or two wi' you." 

She should have as many words as she liked, he told her ; and 
took her into his room, and made her sit down. 

" 'Tis concerning Sloppy, sir," said Betty. " And that's how 
I come here by myself. Not wishing him to know what I'm 
a going to say to you, I got the start of him early and walked 
up." 

"You have wonderful energy," returned Rokesmith. "You 
are as young as I am." 

Betty Higden gravely shook her head. " I am strong for my 
time of life, sir, but not young, thank the Lord ! " 

" Are you thankful for not being young ? " 

"Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone 
through again, and the end would be a weary way off, don't you 
see 1 But never mind me ; 'tis concerning Slopjjy." 

" And what about him, Betty 1 " 

" 'Tis just this, sir. It can't be reasoned out of his head by 
any powers of mine but what that he can do right by your kind 
lady and gentleman and do his work for me, both together. Now 
he can't. To give himself up to being put in the way of arning a 
good living and getting on, he must give me up. Well ; he won't." 

"I respect him for it," said Rokesmith. 

" Do ye, sir ? I don't know but what I do myself. Still that 
don't make it right to let him have his way. So as he won't give 
me up, I'm a going to give him up." 

"How, Betty?" 

"I'm a going to run away from him." 



366 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

With an astonished look at the indomitable old face and the 
bright eyes, the Secretary repeated, " Run away from him 1 " 

" Yes, sir," said Betty, with one nod. And in the nod and in the 
firm set of her mouth, there was a vigour of purpose not to be doubted. 

"Come, come," said the Secretary. "We must talk about this. 
Let us take our time over it, and try to get at the true sense of 
the case and the true course, by degrees." 

"Now, lookee here, my dear," returned old Betty — "asking 
your excuse for being so familiar, but being of a time of life a'most 
to be your grandmother twice over. Now lookee here. 'Tis a 
poor living and a hard as is to be got out of this work that I am 
a doing now, and but for Sloppy I don't know as I should have 
held to it this long. But it did just keep us on, the two together. 
Now that I'm alone — with even Johnny gone — I'd far sooner be 
upon my feet and tiring of myself out, than a sitting folding and folding 
by the fire. And I'll tell you why. There's a deadness steals over 
me at times, that the kind of life favours and I don't like. Now, 
I seem to have Johnny in my arms — now, his mother — now, his 
mother's mother — now, I seem to be a child myself, a lying once 
again in the arms of my own mother — then I get numbed, thought 
and senses, till I start out of my seat, afeerd that I'm a growing 
like the poor old people that they brick up in the Unions, as you 
may sometimes see when they let 'em out of the four walls to have 
a warm in the sun, crawling quite scared about the streets. I 
was a nimble girl, and have always been a active body, as I told 
your lady, first time ever I see her good face. I can still walk 
twenty mile if I am put to it. I'd far better be a walking than 
a getting numbed and dreary. I'm a good fair knitter, and can 
make many little things to sell. The loan from your lady and 
gentleman of twenty shillings to fit out a basket with, would be a 
fortune for me. Trudging round the country and tiring of myself 
out, I shall keep the deadness off, and get my own bread by my 
own labour. And what more can I want ? " 

"And this is your plan," said the Secretary, "for running 
away 1 " 

"Show me a better! My deary, show me a better! Why, I 
know very well," said old Betty Higden, "and you know very well, 
that your lady and gentleman would set me up like a queen for 
the rest of my life, if so be that we could make it right among us 
to have it so. But we can't make it right among us to have it so. 
I've never took charity yet, nor yet has any one belonging to me. 
And it would be forsaking of myself indeed, and forsaking of my 
children dead and gone, and forsaking of their children dead and 
gone, to set up a contradiction now at last." 



OUK MUTUAL FRIEND. 367 

"It might come to be justifiable and unavoidable at last," the 
Secretary gently hinted, with a slight stress on the word. 

" I hope it never will ! It ain't that I mean to give offence by 
being anyways proud," said the old creature simply, "but that I 
want to be of a piece like, and helpful of myself right through to 
my death." 

"And to be sure," added the Secretary, as a comfort for her, 
" Sloppy will be eagerly looking forward to his opportunity of being 
to you what you have been to him." 

" Trust him for that, sir ! " said Betty, cheerfully. " Though 
he had need to be something quick about it, for I'm a getting to be 
an old one. But I'm a strong one too, and travel and weather 
never hurt me yet ! Now, be so kind as speak for me to your lady 
and gentleman, and tell 'em what I ask of their good friendliness 
to let me do, and why I ask it." 

The Secretary felt that there was no gainsaying what was urged 
by this brave old heroine, and he presently repaired to Mrs. Boffin 
and recommended her to let Betty Higden have her way, at all 
events for the time. " It would be far more satisfactory to your 
kind heart, I know," he said, " to provide for her, but it may be a 
duty to respect this independent spirit." Mrs. Boffin was not 
proof against the consideration set before her. She and her hus- 
band had worked too, and had brought their simple faith and 
honour clean out of dust heaps. If they owed a duty to Betty 
Higden, of a surety that duty must be done. 

"But, Betty," said Mrs. Boffin, when she accompanied John 
Rokesmith back to his room, and shone upon her with the light of 
her radiant face, "granted all else, I think I wouldn't run away." 

"'Twould come easier to Sloppy," said Mrs. Higden, shaking 
her head. "'Twould come easier to me too. But 'tis as you 
please." 

" When would you go 1 " 

" Now," was the bright and ready answer. " To-day, my deary, 
to-morrow. Bless ye, I am used to it. I know many parts of the 
country well. When nothing else was to be done, I have worked 
in many a market-garden afore now, and in many a hop-garden 
too." 

" If I give my consent to your going, Betty — which Mr. Koke- 
smith thinks I ought to do — " 

Betty thanked him with a grateful curtsey. 

" — We must not lose sight of you. We must not let you pass 
out of our knowledge. We must know all about you." 

" Yes, my deary, but not through letter-writing, because letter- 
writing — indeed, writing of most sorts — hadn't much come up 



368 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

for such as me when I was young. But I shall be to and fro. 
No fear of my missing a chance of giving myself a sight of your 
reviving face. Besides," said Betty, with logical good faith, "I 
shall have a debt to pay off, by littles, and naturally that would 
bring me back, if nothing else would." 

" Must it be done ? " asked Mrs. Boffin, still reluctant, of the 
Secretary. 

" I think it must." 

After more discussion it was agreed that it should be done, and 
Mrs. Boffin summoned Bella to note down the little purchases that 
were necessary to set Betty up in trade. " Don't ye be timorous 
for me, my dear," said the staunch old heart, observant of Bella's 
face: "when I take my seat with my work, clean and busy and 
fresh, in a country market-place, I shall turn a sixpence as sure as 
ever a farmer's wife there." 

The Secretary took that opportunity of touching on the practical 
question of Mr. Sloppy 's capabilities. " He would have made a 
wonderful cabinet-maker," said Mrs. Higden, "if there had been 
the money to put him to it." She had seen him handle tools that 
he had borrowed to mend the mangle, or to knock a broken piece 
of furniture together, in a surprising manner. As to constructing 
toys for the Minders, out of nothing, he had done that daily. 
And once as many as a dozen people had got together in the lane 
to see the neatness with which he fitted the broken pieces of a 
foreign monkey's musical instrument. "That's well," said the 
Secretary. "It will not be hard to find a trade for him." 

John Harmon being buried under mountains now, the Secretary 
that very same day set himself to finish his affairs and have done 
with him. He drew up an ample declaration, to be signed by 
Rogue Riderhood (knowing he could get his signature to it, by 
making him another and much shorter evening call ), and then con- 
sidered to wliom should he give the document ? To Hexam's son, 
or daughter ? Resolved speedily, to the daughter. But it would 
be safer to avoid seeing the daughter, because the son had seen 
Julius Handford, and — he could not be too careful — ^ there might 
possibly be some comparison of notes between son and daughter, 
which would awaken slumbering suspicion, and lead to consequences. 
" I might even," he reflected, " be apprehended as having been con- 
cerned in my own murder ! " Therefore, best to send it to the 
daughter under cover by the post. Pleasant Riderhood had un- 
dertaken to find out where she lived, and it was not necessary that 
it should be attended by a single word of explanation. So far, 
straight. 

But, all that he knew of the daughter he derived from Mrs, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 369 

Boffin's accounts of what she heard from Mr. Lightwood, who 
seemed to have a reputation for his manner of relating a story, and 
to have made this story quite his own. It interested him, and he 
would like to have the means of knowing more — as, for instance, 
that she received the exonerating paper, and that it satisfied her 
— by opening some channel altogether independent of Lightwood : 
who likewise had seen Julius Handford, who had publicly advertised 
for Julius Handford, and wdiom of all men he, the Secretary, most 
avoided. "But with whom the common course of things might 
bring me in a moment face to face, any day in the week, or any 
hour in the day." 

Now, to cast about for some likely means of opening such a chan- 
nel. The boy, Hexam, was training for and with a schoolmaster. 
The Secretary knew it, because his sister's share in that disposal of 
him seemed to be the best part of Lightwood's account of the family. 
This young fellow. Sloppy, stood in need of some instruction. If he, 
the Secretary, engaged that schoolmaster to impart it to him, the 
channel might be opened. The next point was, did Mrs. Boffin 
know the schoolmaster's name? No, but she knew where the 
school was. Quite enough. Promptly the Secretary wrote to the 
master of that school, and that very evening Bradley Headstone 
answered in person. 

The Secretary stated to the schoolmaster how the object was, 
to send to him for certain occasional evening instruction, a youth 
whom Mr. and Mrs. Boffin wished to help to an industrious and use- 
ful place in life. The schoolmaster was willing to undertake the 
charge of such a pupil. The Secretary inquired on what terms ? 
The schoolmaster stated on wdiat terms. Agreed and disposed of. 

"May I ask, sir," said Bradley Headstone, "to whose good 
opinion I owe a recommendation to you ? " 

" You should know that I am not the principal here. I am Mr. 
Boffin's Secretary. Mr. Boffin is a gentleman who inherited a 
property of which you may have heard some public mention ; the 
Harmon property." 

"Mr. Harmon," said Bradley: who would have been a great 
deal more at a loss than he w*as, if he had known to whom he 
spoke : "was murdered, and found in the river." 

"Was murdered and found in the river." 

"It was not " 

"No," interposed the Secretary, smiHng, "it was not he who 
recommended you. Mr. Boffin heard of you through a certain Mr. 
Lightwood. I think you know Mr. Lightwood, or know of him ? " 

" I know as much of him as I wish to know, sir. I have no 
acquaintance with Mr. Lightwood, and I desire none. I have no 

2b 



370 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

objection to Mr. Lightwood, but I have a particular objection to 
some of Mr. Lightwood's friends — in short, to one of Mr. Light- 
wood's friends. His great friend." 

He could hardly get the words out, even then and there, so 
fierce did he grow (though keeping himself down with infinite pains 
of repression), when the careless and contemptuous bearing of 
Eugene Wrayburn rose before his mind. 

The Secretary saw there was a strong feeling here on some sore 
point, and he would have made a diversion from it, but for Bradley's 
holding to it in his cumbersome way. 

"I have no objection to mention the friend by name," he said, 
doggedly. " The person I object to, is Mr. Eugene Wrayburn." 

The Secretary remembered him. In his disturbed recollection of 
that night when he was striving against the drugged drink, there 
was but a dim image of Eugene's person ; but he remembered his 
name, and his manner of speaking, and how he had gone with them 
to view the body, and where he had stood, and what he had said. 

" Pray, Mr. Headstone, what is the name," he asked, again trying 
to make a diversion, "of young Hexam's sister?" 

" Her name is Lizzie," said the schoolmaster, with a strong con- 
traction of his whole face. 

" She is a young woman of a remarkable character; is she not ? " 

" She is sufficiently remarkable to be very superior to Mr. Eugene 
Wrayburn — though an ordinary person might be that," said the 
schoolmaster; "and I hope you will not tliink it impertinent in 
me, sir, to ask why you put the two names together ? " 

"By mere accident," returned the Secretary. "Observing that 
Mr. Wrayburn was a disagreeable subject with you, I tried to get 
away from it ; though not very successfully, it would appear." 

"Do you know Mr. Wrayburn, sir?" 

"No." 

" Then perhaps the names cannot be put together on the authority 
of any representation of his ? " 

" Certainly not." 

" I took the liberty to ask," said Bradley, after casting his eyes 
on the ground, " because he is capable of making any representation, 
in the swaggering levity of his insolence. I — I hope you will not 
misunderstand me, sir. I — I am much interested in this brother 
and sister, and the subject awakens very strong feelings within me. 
Very, very strong feelings." With shaking hand, Bradley took out 
his handkerchief and wiped his brow. 

The Secretary thought, as he glanced at the schoolmaster's face, 
that he had opened a channel here indeed, and that it was an un- 
expectedly dark and deep and stormy one, and difficult to sound. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 371 

All at once, in the midst of his turbulent emotions, Bradley stopped 
and seemed to challenge his look. Much as though he suddenly 
asked him, " What do you see in me ? " 

"The brother, young Hexam, was your real recommendation 
here," said the Secretary, quietly going back to the point; "Mr. 
and Mrs. Boffin happening to know, through Mr. Lightwood, that 
he w^as your pupil. Anything that I ask respecting the brother 
and sister, or either of them, I ask for myself, out of my own interest 
in the subject, and not in my official character, or on Mr. Boffin's 
behalf. How I come to be interested, I need not explain. You 
know the father's connection with the discovery of Mr. Harmon's 
body?" 

"Sir," replied Bradley, very restlessly indeed, "I know all the 
circumstances of that case." 

"Pray tell me, Mr. Headstone," said the Secretary. "Does the 
sister suffer under any stigma because of the impossible accusation 
— groundless would be a better word — that was made against 
the father, and substantially withdrawn ? " 

"No, sir," returned Bradley, with a kind of anger. 

" I am veiy glad to hear it." 

"The sister," said Bradley, separating his words over-carefully, 
and speaking as if he were repeating them from a book, " suffers 
under no reproach that repels a man of unimpeachable character, 
who has made for himself every step of his way in life, from plac- 
ing her in his own station. I will not say raising her to his own 
station; I say, placing her in it. The sister labours under no 
reproach, unless she should unfortunately make it for herself. 
When such a man is not deterred from regarding her as his equal, 
and when he has convinced himself that there is no blemish on her, 
I think the fact must be taken to be pretty expressive." 

" And there is such a man 1 " said the Secretary. 

Bradley Headstone knotted his brows, and squared his large 
lower jaw, and fixed his eyes on the ground with an air of deter- 
mination that seemed unnecessary to the occasion, as he replied : 
" And there is such a man." 

The Secretary had no reason or excuse for prolonging the con- 
versation, and it ended here. Within three hours the oaken-headed 
apparition once more dived into the Leaving Shop, and that night 
Rogue Riderhood's recantation lay in the post-office, addressed 
under cover to Lizzie Hexam at her right address. 

All these proceedings occupied John Rokesmith so much, that it 
was not until the following day that he saw Bella again. It 
seemed then to be tacitly understood between them that they were 
to be as distantly easy as they could, without attracting the attention 



372 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin to any marked change in their manner. 
The fitting out of old Betty Higden was favourable to this, as keep- 
ing Bella engaged and interested, and as occuiDying the general 
attention. 

" I think," said Rokesmith, when they all stood about her, while 
she packed her tidy basket — except Bella, who was busily helping 
on her knees at the chair on which it stood ; " that at least you 
might keep a letter in your pocket, Mrs. Higden, which I would 
write for you and date from here, merely stating, in the names of 
Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, that they are your friends; — I won't say 
patrons, because they wouldn't like it." 

" No, no, no," said Mr. Boffin ; "no patronising ! Let's keep 
out of that, whatever we come to." 

"There's more than enough of that about, without us; ain't 
there. Noddy 1 " said Mrs. Boffin. 

" I believe you, old lady ! " returned the Golden Dustman. "Over- 
much, indeed ! " 

" But people sometimes like to be patronised ; don't they, sir ? " 
asked Bella, looking up. 

" / don't. And if they do, my dear, they ought to learn better," 
said Mr. Boffin. "Patrons and Patronesses, and Vice-Patrons and 
Vice-Patronesses, and Deceased Patrons and Deceased Patronesses, 
and Ex- Vice-Patrons and Ex- Vice-Patronesses, what does it all 
mean in the books of the Charities that come pouring in on Roke- 
smith as he sits among 'em pretty well up to his neck ! If Mr. 
Tom Noakes gives liis five shillings, ain't he a Patron, and if Mrs. 
Jack Styles gives her five shillings, ain't she a Patroness ? What 
the deuce is it all about ? If it ain't stark staring impudence, what 
do you call it?" 

" Don't be warm. Noddy," Mrs. Boffin urged. 

" Warm ! " cried Mr. Boffin. " It's enough to make a man smok- 
ing hot. I can't go anywhere without being Patronised. I don't 
want to be Patronised. If I buy a ticket for a Flower Show, or 
a Music Show, or any sort of Show, and pay pretty heavy for it, 
why am I to be Patroned and Patronessed as if the Patrons and 
Patronesses treated me 1 If there's a good thing to be done, can't 
it be done on its own merits ? If there's a bad thing to be done, 
can it ever be Patroned and Patronessed right 1 Yet when a new 
Institution's going to be built, it seems to me that the bricks 
and mortar ain't made of half so much consequence as the Patrons 
and Patronesses ; no, nor yet the objects. I Avish somebody would 
tell me whether other countries get Patronised to anything like the 
extent of this one ! And as to the Patrons anfl Patronesses them- 
selves, I wonder they're not ashamed of themselves. They ain't 



374 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Pills, or Hair- Washes, or Invigorating Nervous Essences, to be 
puffed in that way ! " 

Ha\dng delivered himself of these remarks, Mr. Boffin took a 
trot, according to his usual custom, and trotted back to the spot 
from which he had started. 

"As to the letter, Rokesmith," said Mr. Boffin, "you're as right 
as a trivet. Give her the letter, make her take the letter, put it in 
her pocket by \iolence. She might fall sick. — You know you 
might fall sick," said Mr. Boffin. "Don't deny it, Mrs. Higden, 
in your obstinacy ; you know you might." 

Old Betty laughed, and said that she would take the letter and 
be thankful. 

" That's right ! " said Mr. Boffin. " Come ! That's sensible. 
And don't be thankful to us (for we never thought of it), but to 
Mr. Rokesmith." 

The letter was written, and read to her, and given to her. 

" Now, how do you feel ? " said Mr. Boffin. " Do you like it 1 " 

" The letter, sir 1 " said Betty. " Ay, it's a beautiful letter ! " 

"No, no, no; not the letter," said Mr. Boffin. "The idea. 
Are you sure you're strong enough to carry out the idea ? " 

" I shall be stronger, and keep the deadness off better this way, 
than any way left open to me, sir." 

" Don't say than any way left open, you know," urged Mr. Boffin ; 
" because there are ways without end. A housekeeper would be 
acceptable over yonder at the Bower, for instance. Wouldn't you 
like to see the Bower, and know^ a retired literary man of the name 
of Wegg that lives there — with a wooden leg ? " 

Old Betty was proof even against this temptation, and fell to 
adjusting her black bonnet and shawl. 

." I wouldn't let you go, now it comes to this, after all," said Mr. 
Boffin, " if I didn't hope that it may make a man and a workman 
of Sloppy, in as short a time as ever a man and a w^orkman was 
made yet. Why, what have you got there, Betty 1 Not a doll ? " 

It was the man in the Guards who had been on duty over 
Johnny's bed. The solitary old woman showed what it was, and 
put it up quietly in her dress. Then, she gratefully took leave of 
Mrs. Boffin, and of Mr. Boffin, and of Rokesmith, and then put her 
old withered arms round Bella's young and blooming neck, and 
said, repeating Johnny's words : "A kiss for the boofer lady." 

The Secretary looked on from a doorway at the boofer lady thus 
encircled, and still looked on at the boofer lady standing alone there, 
when the determined old figure with its steady bright eyes was 
trudging through the streets, away from paralysis and pauperism. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 375 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE WHOLE CASE SO FAK. 

Bradley Headstone held fast by that other interview he was 
to have with Lizzie Hexam. In stipulating for it, he had been im- 
pelled by a feeling little short of desperation, and the feeling abided 
by him. It was very soon after his interview with the Secretary, that 
he and Charley Hexam set out one leaden evening, not unnoticed 
by Miss Peecher, to have this desperate interview accomplished. 

"That dolls' dressmaker," said Bradley, "is favourable neither 
to me nor to you, Hexam." 

" A pert crooked little chit, Mr. Headstone ! I knew she would 
put herself in the way, if she could, and would be sure to strike in 
with something impertinent. It was on that account that I pro- 
posed our going to the City to-night and meeting my sister." 

" So I suppose," said Bradley, getting his gloves on his nervous 
hands as he walked. " So I suppose." 

"Nobody but my sister," pursued Charley, "would have found 
out such an extraordinary companion. She has done it in a ridicu- 
lous fancy of giving herself up to another. She told me so, that 
night when we went there." 

" Why should she give herself up to the dressmaker ? " asked 
Bradley. 

" Oh ! " said the boy, colouring. " One of her romantic ideas ! 
I tried to convince her so, but I didn't succeed. However, what 
we have got to do is, to succeed to-night, Mr. Headstone, and then 
all the rest follows." 

" You are still sanguine, Hexam." 

" Certainly I am, sir. Why, we have everything on our side." 

" Except your sister, perhaps," thought Bradley. But he only 
gloomily thought it, and said nothing. 

" Everything on our side," repeated the boy with boyish confi- 
dence. " Respectability, an excellent connection for me, common 
sense, everything ! " 

"To be sure, your sister has always shown herself a devoted 
sister," said Bradley, willing to sustain himself on even that low 
ground of hope. 

" Naturally, Mr. Headstone, I have a good deal of influence 
with her. And now that you have honoured me with your confi- 
dence and spoken to me first, I say again, we have everything on 
our side." 

And Bradley thought again, " Except your sister, perhaps." 

A grey dusty withered evening in London city has not a hopeful 



376 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

aspect. The closed warehouses and offices have an air of death 
about them, and the national dread of colour has an air of mourn- 
ing. The towers and steeples of the many house-encompassed 
churches, dark and dingy as the sky that seems descending on them, 
are no relief to the general gloom ; a sun-dial on a church-wall has 
the look, in its useless black shade, of having failed in its business 
enterprise and stopped payment for ever; melancholy waifs and 
strays of housekeepers and porters sweep melancholy waifs and 
strays of papers and pins into the kennels, and other more melan- 
choly waifs and strays explore them, searching and stooping and 
poking for anything to sell. The set of humanity outward from 
the City is as a set of prisoners departing from gaol, and dismal 
Newgate seems quite as fit a stronghold for the mighty Lord Mayor 
as his own state-dwelling. 

On such an evening, when the City grit gets into the hair and 
eyes and skin, and when the fallen leaves of the few unhappy City 
trees grind down in corners under wheels of wind, the schoolmaster 
and the pupil emerged upon the Leadenhall Street region, spying 
eastward for Lizzie. Being something too soon in their arrival, 
they lurked at a corner, waiting for her to appear. The best-look- 
ing among us will not look very well, lurking at a corner, and 
Bradley came out of that disadvantage very poorly indeed. 

" Here she comes, Mr. Headstone ! Let us go forward and meet 
her." 

As they advanced, she saw them coming, and seemed rather 
troubled. But she greeted her brother with the usual warmth, and 
touched the extended hand of Bradley. 

"Why, where are you going, Charley, dear?" she asked him 
then. 

" Nowhere. We came on purpose to meet you." 

"To meet me, Charley?" 

" Yes. We are going to walk with you. But don't let us take 
the great leading streets where every one walks, and we can't hear 
ourselves speak. Let us go by the quiet backways. Here's a large 
paved court by this church, and quiet, too. Let us go up here." 

" But it's not in the way, Charley." 

" Yes it is," said the boy, petulantly. " It's in my way, and my 
way is yours." 

She had not released his hand, and, still holding it, looked at 
him with a kind of appeal. He avoided her eyes, under pretence of 
saying, " Come along, Mr. Headstone." Bradley walked at his side 
— not at hers — and the brother and sister walked hand in hand. 
The court brought them to a churchyard ; a paved square court, 
with a raised bank of earth about breast high, in the middle, en- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 377 

closed by iron rails. Here, conveniently and healthfully elevated 
above the level of the living, were the dead, and the tombstones ; 
some of the latter droopingly inclined from the perpendicular, as if 
they were ashamed of the lies they told. 

They paced the whole of this place once in a constrained and 
uncomfortable manner, when the boy stopped and said : 

" Lizzie, Mr. Headstone has something to say to you. I don't 
wish to be an interruption either to him or to you, and so I'll go 
and take a little stroll and come back. I know in a general way 
what Mr. Headstone intends to say, and I very highly approve of 
it, as I hope — and indeed I do not doubt — you will. I needn't 
tell you, Lizzie, that I am under great obligations to Mr. Headstone, 
and that I am very anxious for Mr. Headstone to succeed in all 
he undertakes. As I hope — and as, indeed, I don't doubt — you 
must be." 

" Charley," returned his sister, detaining his hand as he withdrew 
it, "I think you had better stay. I think Mr. Headstone had 
better not say what he thinks of saying." 

" Why, how do you know what it is ? " returned the boy. 

"Perhaps I don't, but—" 

"Perhaps you don't? No, Liz, I should think not. If you 
knew what it was, you would give me a very different answer. 
There : let go ; be sensible. I wonder you don't remember that 
Mr. Headstone is looking on." 

She allowed him to separate himself from her, and he, after 
saying, "Now, Liz, be a rational girl and a good sister," walked 
away. She remained standing alone with Bradley Headstone, and 
it was not until she raised her eyes, that he spoke. 

"I said," he began, "when I saw you last, that there was some- 
thing unexplained, which might perhaps influence you. I have 
come this evening to explain it. I hope you will not judge of me by 
my hesitating manner when I speak to you. You see me at my 
greatest disadvantage. It is most unfortunate for me that I wish 
you to see me at my best, and that I know you see me at my worst." 

She moved slowly on when he paused, and he moved slowly on 
beside her. 

"It seems egotistical to begin by saying so much about myself," 
he resumed, "but whatever I say to you seems, even in my own 
ears, below what I want to say, and different from what I want to 
say. I can't help it. So it is. You are the ruin of me." 

She started at the passionate sound of the last words, and 
at the passionate action of his hands, with which they were 
accompanied. 

" Yes ! you are the ruin — the ruin — the ruin — of me. I 



378 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

have no resources in myself, I have no confidence in myself, I have 
no government of myself when you are near me or in my thoughts. 
And you are always in my thoughts now. I have never been quit 
of you since I first saw you. Oh, that was a wretched day for 
me ! That was a wretched, miserable day ! " 

A touch of pity for him mingled with her dislike of him, and 
she said : " Mr. Headstone, I am grieved to have done you any 
Iiarm, but I have never meant it." 

" There ! " he cried, despairingly. " Now, I seem to have re- 
proached you, instead of revealing to you the state of my own 
mind ! Bear with me. I am always wrong when you are in 
question. It is my doom." 

Struggling with himself, and by times looking up at the deserted 
windows of the houses as if there could be anything written in 
their grimy panes that would help him, he paced the whole pave- 
ment at her side, before he spoke again. 

"I must try to give expression to what is in my mind ; it shall 
and must be spoken. Though you see me so confounded — though 
you strike me so helpless — I ask you to believe that there are 
many people who think well of me ; that there are some people 
who highly esteem me ; that I have in my way won a station 
which is considered worth winning." 

"Surely, Mr. Headstone, I do believe it. Surely I have always 
known it from Charley." 

"I ask you to believe that if I were to off'er my home such as 
it is, my station such as it is, my affections such as they are, to 
any one of the best considered, and best qualified, and most dis- 
tinguished, among the young women engaged in my calling, they 
would probably be accepted. Even readily accepted." 

"I do not doubt it," said Lizzie, with her eyes upon the ground. 

" I have sometimes had it in my thoughts to make that offer 
and to settle down as many men of my class do : I on the one side 
of a school, my wife on the other, both of us interested in the 
same work." 

"Why have you not done so?" asked Lizzie Hexam. "Why 
do you not do so ? " 

"Far better that I never did ! The only one grain of comfort I 
have had these many weeks," he said, always speaking passion- 
ately, and, when most emphatic, repeating that former action of 
his hands, which was like flinging his heart's blood down before 
her in drops upon the pavement-stones; "the only one grain of 
comfort I have had these many weeks is, that I never did. For if 
I had, and if tlie same spell had come upon me for my ruin, I know 
I should have broken that tie asunder as if it had been thread." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 379 

She glanced at him with a glance of fear, and a shrinking 
gesture. He answered, as if she had spoken. 

" No ! It would not have been voluntary on my part, any more 
than it is voluntary in me to be here now. You draw me to you. 
If I were shut up in a strong prison, you would draw me out. I 
should break through the wall to come to you. If I were lying 
on a sick bed, you would draw me up — to stagger to your feet 
and fall there." 

The wild energy of the man, now quite let loose, was absolutely 
terrible. He stopped and laid his hand upon a piece of the coping 
of the burial-ground enclosure, as if he would have dislodged the 
stone. 

" No man knows till the time comes, what depths are within 
him. To some men it never comes ; let them rest and be thank- 
ful ! To me, you brought it ; on me, you forced it ; and the 
bottom of this raging sea," striking himself upon the breast, " has 
been heaved up ever since." 

" Mr. Headstone, I have heard enough. Let me stop you here. 
It will be better for you and better for me. Let us find my 
brother." 

" Not yet. It shall and must be spoken. I have been in tor- 
ments ever since I stopped short of it before. You are alarmed. 
It is another of my miseries that I cannot speak to you or speak 
of you without stumbling at every syllable, unless I let the check 
go altogether and run mad. Here is a man lighting the lamps. 
He will be gone directly. I entreat of you let us walk round this 
place again. You have no reason to look alarmed ; I can restrain 
myself, and I will." 

She yielded to the entreaty — how could she do otherwise ? — 
and they paced the stones in silence. One by one the lights leaped 
up, making the cold grey church tower more remote, and they were 
alone again. He said no more until they had regained the spot 
where he had broken off; there, he again stood still, and again 
grasped the stone. In saying what he said then, he never looked 
at her ; but looked at it and wrenched at it. 

"You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other 
men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell ; what / 
mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous attrac- 
tion which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters me. You 
could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw 
me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw 
me to anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any 
exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of my thoughts, 
so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by your being the 



380 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

ruin of me. But if you would return a favourable answer to my 
offer of myself in marriage, you could draw me to any good — 
eveiy good — with equal force. My circumstances are quite easy, 
and you would want for nothing. My reputation stands quite 
high, and would be a shield for yours. If you saw me at my 
work, able to do it well and respected in it, you might even come 
to take a sort of pride in me : — I would try hard that you should. 
Whatever considerations I may have thought of against this offer, 
I have conquered, and I make it with all my heart. Your brother 
favours me to the utmost, and it is likely that we might live and 
work together ; anyhow, it is certain that he would have my best 
influence and support. I don't know that I could say more if I 
tried. I might only weaken what is ill enough said as it is. I 
only add that if it is any claim on you to be in earnest, I am in 
thorough earnest, dreadful earnest." 

The powdered mortar from under the stone at which he wrenched, 
rattled on the pavement to confirm his words. 

"Mr. Headstone " 

" Stop ! I implore you, before you answer me, to walk round 
this place once more. It will give you a minute's time to think, 
and me a minute's time to get some fortitude together." 

Again she yielded to the entreaty, and again they came back to 
the same place, and again he worked at the stone. 

"Is it," he said, with his attention apparently engrossed by it, 
" yes, or no ? " 

" Mr. Headstone, I thank you sincerely, I thank you gratefully, 
and hope you may find a worthy wife before long and be very 
happy. But it is no." 

"Is no short time necessary for reflection ; no weeks or days ? " 
he asked, in the same half-suffocated way. 

"None whatever." 

" Are you quite decided, and is there no chance of any change 
in my favour ? " 

" I am quite decided, Mr. Headstone, and I am bound to answer 
I am certain there is none." 

" Then," said he, suddenly changing his tone and turning to her, 
and bringing his clenched hand down upon the stone with a force 
that laid the knuckles raw and bleeding; "then I hope that I 
may never kill him ! " 

The dark look of hatred and revenge with which the words broke 
from his livid lips, and with which he stood holding out his smeared 
hand as if it held some weapon and had just struck a mortal blow, 
made her so afraid of him that she turned to run away. But he 
caught her by the arm. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 381 

"Mr. Headstone, let me go. Mr. Headstone, I must call for 
help ! " 

"It is I who should call for help," he said; "you don't know 
yet how much I need it." 

The working of his face as she shrank from it, glancing round 
for her brother, and uncertain what to do, might have extorted a 
cry from her in another instant ; but all at once he sternly stopped 
it and fixed it, as if Death itself had done so. 

" There ! You see I have recovered myself. Hear me out." 

With much of the dignity of courage, as she recalled her self- 
reliant life and her right to be free from accountability to this man, 
she released her arm from his grasp and stood looking full at him. 
She had never been so handsome in his eyes. A shade came over 
them while he looked back at her, as if she drew the very light 
out of them to herself. 

"This time, at least, I will leave nothing unsaid," he went on, 
folding his hands before him, clearly to prevent his being betrayed 
into any impetuous gesture ; " this last time at least I will not be 
tortured with after-thoughts of a lost opportunity. Mr. Eugene 
Wrayburn." 

" Was it of him you spoke in your ungovernable rage and vio- 
lence 1 " Lizzie Hexam demanded with spirit. 

He bit his lip, and looked at her, and said never a word. 

" Was it Mr. Wrayburn that you threatened ? " 

He bit his lip again, and looked at her, and said never a word. 

"You asked me to hear you out, and you will not speak. Let 
me find my brother." 

" Stay ! I threatened no one." 

Her look dropped for an instant to his bleeding hand. He lifted 
it to his mouth, wiped it on his sleeve, and again folded it over the 
other. "Mr. Eugene Wrayburn," he repeated. 

" Why do you mention that name again and again, Mr. Head- 
stone ? " 

" Because it is the text of the little I have left to say. Observe ! 
There are no threats in it. If I utter a threat, stop me, and fasten 
it upon me. Mr. Eugene Wrayburn." 

A worse threat than was conveyed in his manner of uttering the 
name, could hardly have escaped him. 

"He haunts you. You accept favours from him. You are 
willing enough to listen to hiin. I know it, as well as he 
does." 

" Mr. Wrayburn has been considerate and good to me, sir," said 
Lizzie, proudly, "in connection with the death and with the mem- 
ory of my poor father." 



382 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" No doubt. He is of course a very considerate and a very good 
man, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn." 

"He is nothing to you, I think," said Lizzie, with an indignation 
she could not repress. 

" Oh yes, .he is. There you mistake. He is much to me," 

" What can he be to you ? " 

" He can be a rival to me among other things," said Bradley. 

"Mr. Headstone," returned Lizzie, with a burning face, "it is 
cowardly in you to speak to me in this way. But it makes me 
able to tell you that I do not like you, and that I never have liked 
you from the first, and that no other living creature has anything 
to do with the effect you have produced upon me for yourself." 

His head bent for a moment, as if under a weight, and he then 
looked up again, moistening his lips. " I was going on with the 
little I had left to say. I knew all this about Mr. Eugene Wray- 
burn, all the while you were drawing me to you. I strove against 
the knowledge, but quite in vain. It made no difference in me. 
With Mr. Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I went on. With Mr. 
Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I spoke to you just now. With 
Mr. Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I have been set aside and I 
have been cast out." 

" If you give those names to my thanking you for your proposal 
and declining it, is it my fault, Mr. Headstone ? " said Lizzie, com- 
passionating the bitter struggle he could not conceal, almost as 
much as she was repelled and alarmed by it. 

"I am not complaining," he returned, "I am only stating the 
case. I had to wrestle with my self-respect when I submitted to 
be drawn to you in spite of Mr. Wrayburn. You may imagine 
how low my self-respect lies now." 

She was hurt and angry ; but repressed herself in consideration 
of his suffering, and of his being her brother's friend. 

"And it lies under his feet," said Bradley, unfolding his hands in 
spite of himself, and fiercely motioning with them both towards the 
stones of the pavement. " Remember that ! It lies under that 
fellow's feet, and he treads upon it and exults above it." 

" He does not ! " said Lizzie. 

" He does ! " said Bradley. " I have stood before him face to 
face, and he crushed me down in the dirt of his contempt, and 
walked over me. Why? Because he knew with triumph what 
was in store for me to-night." 

" Oh, Mr. Headstone, you talk quite wildly." 

" Quite collectedly. I know what I say too well. Now I have 
said all. I have used no threat, remember ; I have done no more 
than show you how the case stands ; — how the case stands, so far." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 383 

At this moment her brother sauntered into view close by. She 
darted to him, and caught him by the hand. Bradley followed, 
and laid his heavy hand on the boy's opposite shoulder. 

"Charley Hexam, I am going home. I must walk home by 
myself to-night, and get shut up in my room without being spoken 
to. Grive me half an hour's start, and let me be till you find me 
at my work in the morning. I shall be at my work in the morn- 
ing just as usual." 

Clasping his hands, he uttered a short unearthly broken cry, and 
went his way. The brother and sister were left looking at one 
another near a lamp in the solitary churchyard, and the boy's face 
clouded and darkened, as he said in a rough tone : " What is the 
meaning of this ? What have you done to my best friend ? Out 
with the truth ! " 

" Charley ! " said his sister. " Speak a little more considerately ! " 

" I am not in the humour for consideration, or for nonsense of 
any sort," replied the boy. "What have you been doing? Why 
has Mr. Headstone gone from us in that way 1 " 

"He asked me — you know he asked me — to be his wife, 
Charley." 

"Well?" said the boy, impatiently. 

" And I was obliged to tell him that I could not be his wife." 

"You were obliged to tell him," repeated the boy angrily, 
between his teetli, and rudely pushing her away. "You were 
obliged to tell him ! Do you know that he is worth fifty of 
you ? " 

" It may easily be so, Charley, but I cannot marry him." 

" You mean that you are conscious that you can't appreciate him, 
and don't deserve him, I suppose ? " 

" I mean that I do not like him, Charley, and that I will 
never marry him." 

" Upon my soul," exclaimed the boy, " you are a nice picture 
of a sister ! Upon my soul, you are a pretty piece of disinterested- 
ness ! And so all my endeavours to cancel the past and to raise 
myself in the world, and to raise you with me, are to be beaten 
down by 7/our low whims ; are they ? " 

" I will not reproach you, Charley." 

" Hear her ! " exclaimed the boy, looking round at the dark- 
ness. " She won't reproach me ! She does her best to destroy 
my fortunes and her own, and she won't reproach me ! Why, 
you'll tell me, next, that you won't reproach Mr. Headstone for 
coming out of the sphere to which he is an ornament, and putting 
himself at T/our feet, to be rejected by youl"" 

" No, Charley ; I will only tell you, as I told himself, that I 



384 OUR MUTUAL FKIEND. 

thank him for doing so, that I am sorry he did so, and that I 
hope he will do much better, and be happy." 

Some touch of compunction smote the boy's hardening heart 
as he looked upon her, his patient little nurse in infancy, his 
patient friend, adviser, and reclaimer in boyhood, the self-for- 
getting sister who had doii'^, everything for him. His tone 
relented, and he drew her arm through his. 

" Now, come, Liz ; don't let us quarrel : let us be reasonable 
and talk this over like brother and sister. Will you listen to 
me?" 

" Oh, Charley ! " she replied through her starting tears ; " do I 
not listen to you, and hear many hard things ? " 

"Then I am sorry. There, Liz! I am unfeignedly sorry. 
Only you do put me out so. Now see. Mr. Headstone is 
perfectly devoted to you. He has told me in the strongest 
manner that he has never been his old self for one single minute 
since I first brought him to see you. Miss Peecher, our school- 
mistress — pretty and young, and all that — is known to be 
very much attached to him, and he won't so much as look at 
her or hear of her. Now, his devotion to you must be a disin- 
terested one ; mustn't it 1 If he married Miss Peecher, he 
would be a great deal better off in all worldly respects, than in 
mariying you. Well then; he has nothing to get by it, has 
he?" 

" Nothing, Heaven knows ! " 

"Very well then," said the boy; "that's something in his 
favour, and a great thing. Then / come in. Mr. Headstone has 
always got me on, and he has a good deal in his power, and of course 
if he was my brother-in-law he wouldn't get me on less, but would get 
me on more. Mr. Headstone comes and confides in me, in a very 
delicate way, and says, ' I hope my marrying your sister would be 
agreeable to you, Hexam, and useful to yoa ? ' I say, ' There's 
nothing in the world, Mr. Headstone, that I could be better 
pleased with.' Mr. Headstone says, 'Then I may rely upon 
your intimate knowledge of me for your good word with your 
sister, Hexam ? ' And I say, ' Certainly, Mr. Headstone, and 
naturally I have a good deal of influence with her.' So I have ; 
haven't I, Liz?" 

"Yes, Charley." 

" Well said ! Now, you see, we begin to get on, the moment 
we begin to be really talking it over, like brother and sister. 
Veiy well. Then t/ou come in. As Mr. Headstone's wife you 
would be occupying a most respectable station, and you would 
be holding a far better place in society than you hold now, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 385 

and you would at length get quit of the river-side and the old 
disagreeables belonging to it, and you would be rid for good of 
dolls' dressmakers and their drunken fathers, and the like of 
that. Not that I want to disparage Miss Jenny Wren : I dare 
say she is all very well in her way; but her way is not your 
way as Mr. Headstone's wife. Now, you see, Liz, on all three 
accounts — on Mr. Headstone's, on r ine, on yours — nothing could 
be better or more desirable." 

They were walking slowly as the boy spoke, and here he stood 
still, to see what effect he had made. His sister's eyes were 
fixed upon him ; but as they showed no yielding, and as she 
remained silent, he walked her on again. There was some dis- 
comfiture in his tone as he resumed, though he tried to conceal it. 

" Having so much influence with you, Liz, as I have, perhaps 
I should have done better to have had a little chat with you 
in the first instance, before Mr. Headstone spoke for himself. 
But really all this in his favour seemed so plain and undeniable, 
and I knew you to have always been so reasonable and sensible, 
that I didn't consider it worth while. Very likely that was a 
mistake of mine. However, it's soon set right. AH that need 
be done to set it right is for you to tell me at once that I may 
go home and tell Mr. Headstone that what has taken place is 
not final, and that it will all come round by-and-bye." 

He stopped again. The pale face looked anxiously and lovingly 
at him, but she shook her head. 

" Can't you speak ? " said the boy sharply. 

" I am very unwilling to speak, Charley, but if I must, I must. 
I cannot authorise you to say any such thing to Mr. Headstone : I 
cannot allow you to say any such thing to Mr. Headstone. Nothing 
remains to be said to him from me, after what I have said for 
good and all, to-night." 

"And this girl," cried the boy, contemptuously throwing her 
off again, " calls herself a sister ! " 

" Charley, dear, that is the second time that you have almost 
struck me. Don't be hurt by my words. I don't mean — 
Heaven forbid ! — that you intended it ; but you hardly know 
with what a sudden swing you removed yourself from me." 

" However ! " said the boy, taking no heed of the remonstrance, 
and pursuing his own modified disappointment, "I know what 
this means, and you shall not disgrace me." 

" It means what I have told you, Charley, and nothing more." 

"That's not true," said the boy, in a violent tone, "and you 
know it's not. It means your precious Mr. Wrayburn ; that's 
what it means." 

2c 



386 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Charley ! If you remember any old days of ours together, 
forbear ! " 

"But you shall not disgrace me," doggedly pursued the boy. 
"I am determined that after I have climbed up out of the mire, 
you shall not pull me down. You can't disgrace me if I have 
nothing to do with you, and I ivill have nothing to do with you 
for the future." 

" Charley ! On many a night like this, and many a worse 
night, I have sat on the stones of the street, hushing you 
in my arms. Unsay those words without even saying you 
are sorry for them, and my arms are open to you still, and 
so is my heart." 

"I'll not unsay them. I'll say them again. You are an 
inveterately bad girl, and a false sister, and I have done with 
you. For ever, I have done with you ! " 

He threw up his ungrateful and ungracious hand as if it set 
up a barrier between them, and flung himself upon his heel and 
left her. She remained impassive on the same spot, silent and 
motionless, until the striking of the church clock roused her, 
and she turned away. But then, with the breaking up of her 
immobility came the breaking up of the waters that the cold 
heart of the selfish boy had frozen. And " Oh, that I were 
lying here with the dead ! " and " Oh, Charley, Charley, that 
this should be the end of our pictures in the fire ! " were 
all the words she said, as she laid her face in her hands on the 
stone coping. 

A figure passed by, and passed on, but stopped and looked round 
at her. It was the figure of an old man with a bowed head, wear- 
ing a large-brimmed low-crowned hat, and a long-skirted coat. After 
hesitating a little, the figure turned back, and, advancing with an 
air of gentleness and compassion, said : 

" Pardon me, young woman, for speaking to you, but you are 
under some distress of mind. I cannot pass upon my way and 
leave you weeping here alone, as if there was nothing in the place. 
Can I help you 1 Can I do anything to give you comfort ? " 

She raised her head at the sound of these kind words, and 
answered gladly, " Oh, Mr. Riah, is it you ?" 

" My daughter," said the old man, "I stand amazed ! I spoke 
as to a stranger. Take my arm, take my arm. What grieves you ? 
Who has done this 1 Poor girl, poor girl ! " 

"My brother has quarrelled with me," sobbed Lizzie, "and 
renounced me." 

" He is a thankless dog," said the Jew, angrily. " Let him go. 
Shake the dust from thy feet and let him go. Come, daughter ! 






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388 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Come home with me — it is but across the road — and take a little 
time to recover your peace and to make your eyes seemly, and then 
I will bear you company through the streets. For it is past your 
usual time, and will soon be late, and the way is long, and there is 
much company out of doors to-night." 

She accepted the support he offered her, and they slowly passed 
out of the churchyard. They were in the act of emerging into the 
main thoroughfare, when another figure loitering discontentedly by, 
and looking up the street and down it, and all about, started and 
exclaimed, " Lizzie ! why, where have you been ? Why, what's 
the matter?" 

As Eugene Wrayburn thus addressed her, she drew closer to the 
Jew, and bent her head. The Jew having taken in the whole of 
Eugene at one sharp glance, cast his eyes upon the ground and 
stood mute. 

" Lizzie, what is the matter ? " 

" Mr. Wrayburn, I cannot tell you now. I cannot tell you to- 
night, if I ever can tell you. Pray leave me." 

" But, Lizzie, 1 came expressly to join you. I came to walk 
home with you, having dined at a coffee-house in this neighbour- 
hood and knowing your hour. And I have been lingering about," 
added Eugene, "like a bailiff; or," with a look at Riah, "an old 
clothesman." 

The Jew lifted up his eyes, and took in Eugene once more, at 
another glance. 

" Mr. Wrayburn, pray, pray leave me with this protector. And 
one thing more. Pray, pray be careful of yourself." 

" Mysteries of Udolpho ! " said Eugene, with a look of wonder. 
" May I be excused for asking, in this elderly gentleman's presence, 
who is this kind protector 1 " 

"A trustworthy friend, "said Lizzie. 

" I will relieve him of his trust," returned Eugene. " But you 
must tell me, Lizzie, what is the matter ? " 

" Her brother is the matter," said the old man, lifting up his 
eyes again. 

" Our brother the matter ? " returned Eugene, with airy con- 
tempt. " Our brother is not worth a thought, far less a tear. 
What has our brother done ? " 

The old man lifted up his eyes again, with one grave look at 
Wrayburn, and one grave glance at Lizzie, as she stood looking 
down. Both were so full of meaning, that even Eugene was 
checked in his light career, and subsided into a thoughtful " Humph ! " 

With an air of perfect patience the old man, remaining mute and 
keeping his eyes cast down, stood, retaining Lizzie's arm, as though, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 389 

in his habit of passive endurance, it would be all one to him if he 
had stood there motionless all night. 

" If Mr. Aaron," said Eugene, who soon found this fatiguing, 
" will be good enough to relinquish his charge to me, he will be quite 
free for any engagement he may have at the Synagogue. Mr. 
Aaron, will you have the kindness ? " 

But the old man stood stock still. 

"Good evening, Mr. Aaron," said Eugene, politely; "we need 
not detain you." Then turning to Lizzie, " Is our friend Mr. Aaron 
a little deaf?" 

"My hearing is very good. Christian gentleman," replied the old 
man, calmly ; " but I will hear only one voice to-night, desiring me 
to leave this damsel before I have conveyed her to her home. If 
she requests it, I will do it. I will do it for no one else." 

" May I ask why so, Mr. Aaron 1 " said Eugene, quite undis- 
turbed in his ease. 

"Excuse me. If she asks me I will tell her," replied the old 
man. " I will tell no one else." 

" I do not ask you," said Lizzie, " and I beg you to take me home. 
Mr. Wrayburn, I have had a bitter trial to-night, and I hope you 
will not think me ungrateful, or mysterious, or changeable. I am 
neither; I am wretched. Pray remember what I said to you. 
Pray, pray take care." 

"My dear Lizzie," he returned, in a low voice, bending over her 
on the other side ; "of what 1 of whom 1 " 

" Of any one you have lately seen and made angry." 

He snapped his fingers and laughed. " Come," said he, "since 
no better may be, Mr. Aaron and I will divide this trust, and see 
you home together. Mr. Aaron on that side ; I on this. If per- 
fectly agreeable to Mr. Aaron, the escort will now proceed." 

He knew his power over her. He knew that she would not 
insist upon his leaving her. He knew that, her fears for him 
being aroused, she would be uneasy if he were out of her sight. 
For all his seeming levity and carelessness, he knew whatever he 
chose to know of the thoughts of her heart. 

And going on at her side, so gaily, regardless of all that had been 
urged against him ; so superior in his sallies and self-possession to 
the gloomy constraint of her suitor, and the selfish petulance of 
her brother ; so faithful to her, as it seemed, when her own stock 
was faithless ; what an immense advantage, what an overpowering 
influence were his that night ! Add to the rest, poor girl, that she 
had heard him vilified for her sake, and that she had suffered for 
his, and where the wonder that his occasional tones of serious 
interest (setting off his carelessness, as if it were assumed to calm 



390 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

her), that his lightest touch, his lightest look, his very presence 
beside her in the dark common street, were like glimpses of an 
enchanted world, which it was natural for jealousy and malice and 
all meanness to he unable to bear the brightness of, and to gird at 
as bad spirits might. 

Nothing more being said of repairing to Riah's, they went direct 
to Lizzie's lodging. A little short of the house-door she parted 
from them, and went in alone. 

" Mr. Aaron," said Eugene, when they were left together in the 
street, " with many thanks for your company, it remains for me 
unwillingly to say Farewell." 

" Sir," returned the other, " I give you good night, and I wish 
that yoi^ were not so thoughtless." 

" Mr. Aaron," returned Eugene, " I give you good night, and I 
wish (for you are a little dull) that you were not so thoughtful." 

But now, that his part was played out for the evening, and when 
in turning his back upon the Jew he came off the stage, he was 
thoughtful himself. "How did Light wood's catechism run ? " he 
murmured, as he stopped to light his cigar. " What is to come of 
it ? What are you doing ? Where are you going ? We shall soon 
know now. Ah ! " with a heavy sigh. 

The heavy sigh was repeated, as if by an echo, an hour after- 
wards, when Riah, who had been sitting on some dark steps in a 
corner over against the house, arose and went his patient way ; 
steaHng through the streets in his ancient dress, like the ghost of 
a departed Time. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

AN ANNIVEKSAEY OCCASION. 

The estimable Twemlow, dressing himself in his lodgings over 
the stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James's, and hearing the 
horses at their toilette below, finds himself on the whole in a dis- 
advantageous position as compared with the noble animals at livery. 
For whereas, on the one hand, he has no attendant to slap him 
soundingly and require him in gruff accents to come up and come 
over, still, on the other hand, he has no attendant at all ; and the 
mild gentleman's finger-joints and other joints working rustily in 
the morning, he could deem it agreeable even to be tied up by the 
countenance at his chamber-door, so he were there skilfully rubbed 
down and slushed and sluiced and polished and clothed, wliile him- 
self taking merely a passive part in these trying transactions. 

How the fascinating Tippins gets on when arraying herself for 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 391 

the bewilderment of the senses of men, is known only to the Graces 
and her maid; but perhaps even that engaging creature, though 
not reduced to the self-dependence of Twemlow, could dispense 
with a good deal of the trouble attendant on the daily restoration 
of her charms, seeing that as to her face and neck this adorable 
divinity is, as it were, a diurnal species of lobster — throwing off 
a shell every forenoon, and needing to keep in a retired spot until 
the new crust hardens. 

Howbeit, Twemlow doth at length invest himself with collar 
and cravat and wristbands to his knuckles, and goeth forth to 
breakfast. And to breakfast with whom but his near neighbours, 
the Lammles of Sackville Street, who have imparted to him that 
he will meet his distant kinsman, Mr. Fledgeby. The awful Snigs- 
worth might taboo and prohibit Fledgeby, but the peaceable Twem- 
low reasons, " If he is my kinsman I didn't make him so, and to 
meet a man is not to know him." 

It is the first anniversary of the happy marriage of Mr. and Mrs. 
Lammle, and the celebration is a breakfast, because a dinner on 
the desired scale of sumptuosity cannot be achieved within less 
limits than those of the non-existent palatial residence of which so 
many people are madly envious. So, Twemlow trips with not a 
little stiffness across Piccadilly, sensible of having once been more 
upright in figure and less in danger of being knocked down by 
swift vehicles. To be sure that was in the days when he hoped 
for leave from the dread Snigsworth to do something, or be some- 
thing, in life, and before that magnificent Tartar issued the ukase, 
"As he will never distinguish himself, he must be a poor gentle- 
man-pensioner of mine, and let him hereby consider himself pen- 
sioned." 

Ah ! my Twemlow ! Say, little feeble grey personage, what 
thoughts are in thy breast to-day, of the Fancy — so still to call 
her who bruised thy heart when it was green and thy head brown 
— and whether it be better or worse, more painful or less, to 
believe in the Fancy to this hour, than to know her for a greedy 
armour-plated crocodile, with no more capacity of imagining the 
delicate and sensitive and tender spot behind thy waistcoat, than 
of going straight at it with a knitting-needle. Say likewise, my 
Twemlow, whether it be the happier lot to be a poor relation of 
the great, or to stand in the wintry slush giving the hack horses to 
drink out of the shallow tub at the coach-stand, into which thou 
hast so nearly set thy uncertain foot. Twemlow says nothing, and 
goes on. 

As he approaches the Lammles' door, drives up a little one-horse 
carriage, containing Tippins the divine. Tippins, letting down the 



392 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

window, playfully extols the vigilance of her cavalier in being in 
waiting there to hand her out. Twemlow hands her out with as 
much polite gravity as if she were anything real, and they proceed 
upstairs : Tippins all abroad about the legs, and seeking to express 
that those unsteady articles are only skipping in their native 
buoyancy. 

And dear Mrs. Lammle and dear Mr. Lammle, how do you do, 
and when are you going down to what's-its-name place — Guy, 
Earl of Warwick, you know — what is if? — Dun Cow — to claim 
the flitch of bacon 1 And Mortimer, whose name is for ever blotted 
out from my list of lovers, by reason first of fickleness and then of 
base desertion, how do t/ou do, wretch ? And Mr. Wrayburn, ^ou 
here ! What can i/ou come for, because we are all very sure before- 
hand that you are not going to talk ! And Veneering, M.P., how 
are things going on down at the House, and when will you turn 
out those terrible people for us ? And Mrs. Veneering, my dear, 
can it positively be true that you go down to that stifling place 
night after night to hear those men prose? Talking of which. 
Veneering, why don't ^ou prose, for you haven't opened your lips 
there yet, and we are dying to hear what you have got to say to 
us ! Miss Podsnap, charmed to see you. Pa, here ? No ! Ma, 
neither ? Oh ! Mr. Boots ! Delighted. Mr. Brewer ! This is a 
gathering of the clans. Thus Tippins, and surveys Fledgeby and 
outsiders through golden glass, murmuring as she turns about and 
about, in her innocent giddy way, Anybody else I know 1 No, I 
think not. Nobody there. Nobody there. Nobody anywhere ! 

Mr. Lammle, all a-glitter, produces his friend Fledgeby, as dying 
for the honour of presentation to Lady Tippins. Fledgeby pre- 
sented, has the air of going to say something, has the air of going 
to say nothing, has an air successively of meditation, of resignation, 
and of desolation, backs on Brewer, makes the tour of Boots, and 
fades into the extreme background, feeling for his whisker, as if it 
might have turned up since he was there five minutes ago. 

But Lammle has him out again before he has so much as com- 
pletely ascertained the bareness of the land. He would seem to 
be in a bad way, Fledgeby ; for Lammle represents him as dying 
again. He is dying now, of want of presentation to Twemlow. 

Twemlow off'ers his hand. Glad to see him. "Your mother, 
sir, was a connection of mine." 

" I believe so," says Fledgeby, " but my mother and her family 
were two." 

" Are you staying in town ? " asks Twemlow. 

"I always am," says Fledgeby. 

" You like town," says Twemlow. But is felled flat by Fledgeby's 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 393 

taking it quite ill, and replying, No, he don't like town. Lammle 
tries to break the force of the fall, by remarking that some people 
do not like town. Fledgeby retorting that he never heard of any 
such case but his own, Twemlow goes down again heavily. 

" There is nothing new this morning, I suppose ? " says Twemlow, 
returning to the mark with great spirit. 

Fledgeby has not heard of anything. 

" No, there's not a word of news," says Lammle. 

" Not a particle," adds Boots. 

" Not an atom," chimes in Brewer. 

Somehow the execution of this little concerted piece appears to 
raise the general spirits as with a sense of duty done, and sets the 
company a going. Everybody seems more equal than before, to 
the calamity of being in the society of everybody else. Even 
Eugene standing in a winodw, moodily swinging the tassel of a 
blind, gives it a smarter jerk now, as if he found himself in better 
case. 

Breakfast announced. Everything on table showy and gaudy, 
but with a self-assertingly temporary and nomadic air on the decora- 
tions, as boasting that they will be much more showy and gaudy 
in the palatial residence. Mr. Lammle's own particular servant 
behind his chair ; the Analytical behind Veneering's chair ; in- 
stances in point that such servants fall into two classes : one mis- 
trusting the master's acquaintances, and the other mistrusting the 
master. Mr. Lammle's servant, of the second class. Appearing 
to be lost in wonder and low spirits because the police are so 
long in coming to take his master up on some charge of the first 
magnitude. 

Veneering, M.P., on the right of Mrs. Lammle ; Twemlow on 
her left ; Mrs. Veneering, W.M.P. (wife of Member of Parlia- 
ment), and Lady Tippins on Mr. Lammle's right and left. But 
be sure that well within the fascination of Mr. Lammle's eye and 
smile sits little Georgiana. And be sure that close to little Georgi- 
ana, also under inspection by the same gingerous gentleman, sits 
Fledgeby. 

Oftener than twice or thrice while breakfast is in progress, Mr. 
Twemlow gives a little sudden turn towards Mrs. Lammle, and 
then says to her, " I beg your pardon ! " This not being Twemlow's 
usual way, why is it his way to-day ? Why, the truth is, Twemlow 
repeatedly labours under the impression that Mrs. Lammle is going 
to speak to him, and turning, finds that it is not so, and mostly 
that she has her eyes upon Veneering. Strange that this impres- 
sion so abides by Twemlow after being corrected, yet so it is. 

Lady Tippins partaking plentifully of the fruits of the earth (in- 



394 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

eluding grape juice in the category), becomes livelier, and applies 
herself to elicit sparks from Mortimer Lightwood. It is always 
understood among the initiated, that that faithless lover must be 
planted at table opposite to Lady Tippins, who will then strike 
conversational fire out of him. In a pause of mastication and deg- 
lutition. Lady Tippins, contemplating Mortimer, recalls that it 
was at our dear Veneerings', and in the presence of a party who 
are surely all here, that he told them his story of the man from 
somewhere, which afterwards became so horribly interesting and 
vulgarly popular. 

"Yes, Lady Tippins," assents Mortimer; "as they say on the 
stage, Even so ! " 

" Then we expect you," retorts the charmer, " to sustain your 
reputation, and tell us something else." 

" Lady Tippins, I exhausted myself for life that day, and there 
is nothing more to be got out of me." 

Mortimer parries thus, with a sense upon him that elsewhere it 
is Eugene and not he who is the jester, and that in these circles 
where Eugene persists in being speechless, he, Mortimer, is but 
the double of the friend on whom he has founded himself. 

" But," quoth the fascinating Tippins, " I am resolved on getting 
something more out of you. Traitor ! what is this I hear about 
another disappearance ? " 

"As it is you who have heard it," returns Lightwood, "perhaps 
you'll tell us." 

" Monster, away ! " retorts Lady Tippins. " Your own Golden 
Dustman referred me to you." 

Mr. Lammle, striking in here, proclaims aloud that there is a 
sequel to the story of the man from somewhere. Silence ensues 
upon the proclamation. 

" I assure you," says Lightwood, glancing round the table, " I 
have nothing to tell." But Eugene adding in a low voice, " There, 
tell it, tell it!" he corrects himself with the addition, "Nothing 
worth mentioning." 

Boots and Brewer immediately perceive that it is immensely 
worth mentioning, and become politely clamorous. Veneering is 
also visited by a perception to the same efiect. But it is under- 
stood that his attention is now rather used up, and difficult to 
hold, that being the tone of the House of Commons. 

" Pray don't be at the trouble of composing yourselves to listen," 
says Mortimer Lightwood, "because I shall have finished long be- 
fore you have fallen into comfortable attitudes. It's like — " 

" It's like," impatiently interrupts Eugene, " the children's nar- 
rative : 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 395 

' I'll tell you a story 
Of Jack a Manory, 
And now my story's begun ; 
I'll teir you another 
Of Jack and his brother, 
And now my story is done.' 

— Get on, and get it over ! " 

Eugene says this with a sound of vexation in his voice, leaning 
back in his chair and looking balefully at Lady TipjDins, who nods 
to him as her dear Bear, and playfully insinuates that she (a self- 
evident proposition) is Beauty, and he Beast. 

"The reference," proceeds Mortimer, "which I suppose to be 
made by my honourable and fair enslaver opposite, is to the follow- 
ing circumstance. Very lately, the young woman, Lizzie Hexam, 
daughter of the late Jesse Hexam, otherwise Gaffer, who will be 
remembered to have found the body of the man from somewhere, 
mysteriously received, she knew not from whom, an explicit retracta- 
tion of the charges made against her father by another waterside 
character of the name of Riderhood. Nobody believed them, be- 
cause little Rogue Riderhood — I am tempted into the paraphrase 
by remembering the charming wolf w^ho would have rendered society 
a great service if he had devoured Mr. Riderhood's father and 
mother in their infancy — had previously played fast and loose 
with the said charges, and, in fact, abandoned them. However, 
the retractation I have mentioned found its way into Lizzie Hexam's 
hands, with a general flavour on it of having been favoured by 
some anonymous messenger in a dark cloak and slouched hat, and 
was by her forwarded, in her father's vindication, to Mr. Boffin, 
my client. You will excuse the phraseology of the shop, but as 
I never had another client, and in all likelihood never shall have, 
I am rather proud of him as a natural curiosity probably unique." 

Although as easy as usual on the surface, Lightwood is not quite 
as easy as usual below it. With an air of not minding Eugene at 
all, he feels that the subject is not altogether a safe one in that 
connection. 

"The natural curiosity which forms the sole ornament of my 
professional museum," he resumes, "hereupon desires his Secretary 

— an individual of the hermit-crab or oyster species, and whose 
name, I think, is Chokesmith — but it doesn't in the least matter 

— say Artichoke — to put himself in communication with Lizzie 
Hexam. Artichoke professes his readiness so to do, endeavours to 
do so, but fails." 

"Why fails?" asks Boots. 
" How fails 1 " asks Brewer. 



396 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Pardon me," returns Lightwood, "I must postpone the reply 
for one moment, or we shall have an anti-climax. Artichoke fail- 
ing signally, my client refers the task to me : his purpose being to 
advance the interests of the object of his search. I proceed to 
put myself in communication with her ; I even happen to possess 
some special means," with a glance at Eugene, "of putting myself in 
communication with her, but I fail too, because she has vanished." 

"Vanished ! " is the general echo. 

"Disappeared," says Mortimer. "Nobody knows how, nobody 
knows when, nobody knows where. And so ends the story to which 
my honourable and fair enslaver opposite referred." 

Tippins, with a bewitching little scream, opines that we shall 
every one of us be murdered in our beds. Eugene eyes her as if 
some of us would be enough for him. Mrs. Veneering, W.M.P., 
remarks that these social mysteries make one afraid of leaving Baby. 
Veneering, M.P., wishes to be informed (with something of a 
second-hand air of seeing the Right Honourable Gentleman at the 
head of the Home Department in his place) whether it is intended 
to be conveyed that the vanished person has been spirited away 
or otherwise harmed ? Instead of Light wood's answering, Eugene 
answers, and answers hastily and vexedly : "No, no, no ; he doesn't 
mean that ; he means voluntarily vanished — but utterly — com- 
pletely." 

However, the great subject of the happiness of Mr. and Mrs. 
Lammle must not be allowed to vanish with the other vanishments 
— with the vanishing of the murderer, the vanishing of Julius 
Handford, the vanishing of Lizzie Hexam, — and therefore Veneering 
must recall the present sheep to the pen from which they have 
strayed. Who so fit to discourse of the happiness of Mr. and Mrs. 
Lammle, they being the dearest and oldest friends he has in the 
world ; or what audience so fit for him to take into his confidence 
as that audience, a noun of multitude, or signifying many, who are 
all the oldest and dearest friends he has in the world ? So Veneer- 
ing, without the formality of rising, launches into a familiar oration, 
gradually toning into the parliamentary sing-song, in which he sees 
at that board his dear friend Twemlow, who on that day twelve- 
month bestowed on his dear friend Lammle the fair hand of his 
dear friend Sophronia, and in which he also sees at that board his 
dear friends Boots and Brewer, whose rallying round him at a 
period when his dear friend Lady Tippins likewise rallied round 
him — ay, and in the foremost rank — he can never forget while 
memory holds her seat. But he is free to confess that he misses 
from that board his dear old friend Podsnap, though he is well repre- 
sented by his dear young friend Georgiana. And he further sees 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 397 

at that board (this he announces with pomp, as if exulting in the 
powers of an extraordinary telescope) his friend Mr. Fledgeby, it 
he will permit him to call him so. For all of these reasons, and 
many more which he right well knows will have occurred to persons 
of your exceptional acuteness, he is here to submit to you that the 
tinie has arrived when, with our hearts in our glasses, with tears m 
our eyes, with blessings on our lips, and in a general way with a 
profusion of gammon and spinach in our emotional larders we 
should one and all drink to our dear friends the Lammles, wishing 
them many many years as happy as the last, and many many friends 
as congenially united as themselves. And this he will add ; that 
Anastatia Veneering (who is instantly heard to weep) is formed on 
the same model as her old and chosen friend Sophronia Lammle m 
respect that she is devoted to the man who wooed and won her, 
and nobly discharges the duties of a wife. 

Seeing no better way out of it. Veneering here pulls up his ora- 
torical Pegasus extremely short, and plumps down clean over .his 
head, with : " Lammle, God bless you ! " -,.-,, 

Then Lammle. Too much of him every way ; pervadmgly too 
much nose of a coarse wrong shape, and his nose in his mmd and 
his manners ; too much smile to be real ; too much frown to be 
false • too many large teeth to be visible at once without suggest- 
ino- a bite. He thanks you, dear friends, for your kindly greeting, 
and hopes to receive you — it may be on the next of these delight- 
ful occasions — in a residence better suited to your claims on the 
rites of hospitaUty. He will never forget that at Veneering s he 
first saw Sophronia. Sophronia will never forget that at Veneer- 
ing's she first saw him. They spoke of it soon after they were 
married, and agreed that they would never forget it. In fact, to 
Veneering they owe their union. They hope to show their sense 
of this some day ("No, no," from Veneering) — oh yes, yes, and 
let him rely upon it, they will if they can ! His marriage with 
Sophronia was not a marriage of interest on either side : she had 
her little fortune, he had his little fortune : they joined their little 
fortunes : it was a marriage of pure inchnation and suitabdity. 
Thank you ' Sophronia and he are fond of the society of young 
people • but he is not sure that their house would be a good house 
for youno- people proposing to remain single, since the contemplation 
of its domestic bhss might induce them to change their mmds He 
will not apply this to any one present ; certainly not to their darling 
little Georgiana. Again thank you ! Neither, by-the-bye, will he 
apply it to his friend Fledgeby. He thanks Veneering for the feel- 
ing manner in which he referred to their common friend Fledgeby, 
for he holds that gentleman in the highest estimation. Thank you. 



398 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

In fact (returning unexpectedly to Fledgeby), the better you know 
him, the more you find in him that you desire to know. Again 
thank you ! In his dear Sophronia's name and in his own, thank 
you! 

Mrs. Lammle has sat quite still with her eyes cast down upon 
the table-cloth. As Mr. Lammle's address ends, Twemlow once 
more turns to her involuntarily, not cured yet of that often recur- 
ring impression that she is going to speak to him. This time she 
really is going to speak to him. Veneering is talking with his 
other next neighbour, and she speaks in a low voice. 

"Mr. Twemlow." 

He answers, " I beg your pardon ? Yes?" Still a little doubt- 
ful, because of her not looking at him. 

" You have the soul of a gentleman, and I know I may trust you. 
Will you give me the opportunity of saying a few words to you 
when you come up-stairs?" 

"Assuredly. I shall be honoured." 

" Don't seem to do so, if you please, and don't think it inconsis- 
tent if my manner should be more careless than my words. I may 
be watched." 

Intensely astonished, Twemlow puts his hand to his forehead, 
and sinks back in his chair meditating. Mrs. Lammle rises. All 
rise. The ladies go up-stairs. The gentlemen soon saunter after 
them. Fledgeby has devoted the interval to taking an observation 
of Boots's whiskers. Brewer's whiskers, and Lammle's whiskers, 
and considering which pattern of whisker he would prefer to pro- 
duce out of himself by friction, if the Genie of the cheek would 
only answer to his rubbing. 

In the drawing-room, groups form as usual. Lightwood, Boots, 
and Brewer, flutter like moths around that yellow wax candle — 
guttering down, and with some hint of a winding sheet in it — 
Lady Tippins. Outsiders cultivate Veneering, M.P., and Mrs. 
Veneering, W.M.P. Lammle stands with folded arms, Mephisto- 
phelean in a corner, with Georgiana and Fledgeby. Mrs. Lammle, 
on a sofa by a table, invites Mr. Twemlow's attention to a book of 
portraits in her hand. 

Mr. Twemlow takes his station on a settee before her, and Mrs. 
Lammle shows him a portrait. 

"You have reason to be surprised," she says softly, "but I wish 
you wouldn't look so." 

Disturbed Twemlow, making an effort not to look so, looks 
much more so. 

" I think, Mr. Twemlow, you never saw that distant connection 
of yours before to-day ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 399 

"No, never." 

" Now that you do see him, you see what he is. You are not 
proud of him ? " 

" To say the truth, Mrs. Lammle, no." 

"If you knew more of him, you would be less inclined to 
acknowledge him. Here is another portrait. What do you think 
of itr' 

Twemlow has just presence of mind enough to say aloud : 
" Very like ! Uncommonly like ! " 

" You have noticed, perhaps, whom he favours with his atten- 
tions ? You notice where he is now, and how engaged ? " 

" Yes. But Mr. Lammle " 

She darts a look at him which he cannot comprehend, and shows 
him another portrait. 

" Very good ; is it not ? " 

" Charming ! " says Twemlow. 

" So like as to be almost a caricature ? — Mr. Twemlow, it is 
impossible to tell you what the struggle in my mind has been 
before I could bring myself to speak to you as I do now. It is 
only in the conviction that I may trust you never to betray me, 
that I can proceed. Sincerely promise me that you never will 
betray my confidence — that you will respect it, even though you 
may no longer respect me, — and I shall be as satisfied as if you 
had sworn it." 

" Madam, on the honour of a poor gentleman " 

" Thank you. I can desire no more. Mr. Twemlow, I implore 
you to save that child ! " 

"That child?" 

" Georgiana. She will be sacrificed. She will be inveigled and 
married to that connection of yours. It is a partnership affair, a 
money speculation. She has no strength of will or character to 
help herself, and she is on the brink of being sold into wretched- 
ness for life." 

" Amazing ! But what can / do to prevent it ? " demands 
Twemlow, shocked and bewildered to the last degree. 

" Here is another portrait. And not good, is it 1 " 

Aghast at the light manner of her throwing her head back to 
look at it critically, Twemlow still dimly perceives the expediency 
of throwing his own head back, and does so. Though he no more 
sees the portrait than if he were in China. 

"Decidedly not good," says Mrs. Lammle. "Stiff and exagger- 
ated ! " 

" And ex " But Twemlow, in his demolished state, cannot 

command the word, and trails off" into " actly so." 



400 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Mr. Twemlow, your word will have weight with her pompous, 
self-blinded father. You know how much he makes of your family. 
Lose no time. Warn him." 

"But warn him against whom?" 

" Against me." 

By great good fortune Twemlow receives a stimulant at this 
critical instant. The stimulant is Lammle's voice. 

" Sophronia, my dear, what portraits are you showing Twemlow?" 

" Public characters, Alfred." 

" Show him the last of me." 

"Yes, Alfred." 

She puts the book down, takes another book up, turns the 
leaves, and presents the portrait to Twemlow. 

"That is the last of Mr. Lammle. Do you think it good? — 
Warn her father against me. I deserve it, for I have been in the 
scheme from the first. It is my husband's scheme, your connec- 
tion's, and mine. I tell you this, only to show you the necessity 
of the poor little foolish affectionate creature's being befriended 
and rescued. You will not repeat this to her father. You will 
spare me so far, and spare my husband. For, though this celebra- 
tion of to-day is all a mockery, he is my husband, and we must 
live. — Do you think it like ? " 

Twemlow, in a stunned condition, feigns to compare the portrait 
in his hand with the original, looking towards him from his 
Mephistophelean corner. 

" Very well indeed ! " are at length the words which Twemlow 
with great difficulty extracts from himself. 

" I am glad you think so. On the whole, I myself consider it 
the best. The others are so dark. Now here, for instance, is 
another of Mr. Lammle " 

"But I don't understand ; I don't see my way," Twemlow stam- 
mers, as he falters over the book with his glass at his eye. " How 
warn her father, and not tell him ? Tell him how much ? Tell 
him how little ? I — I — am getting lost." 

" Tell him I am a match-maker ; tell him I am an artful and 
designing woman ; tell him you are sure his daughter is best out 
of my house and my company. Tell him any such things of me ; 
they will all be true. You know what a puffed-up man he is, and 
how easily you can cause his vanity to take the alarm. Tell him 
as much as will give him the alarm and make him careful of her, 
and spare me the rest. Mr. Twemlow, I feel my sudden degrada- 
tion in your eyes ; familiar as I am with my degradation in my 
own eyes, I keenly feel the change that must have come upon me 
in yours, in these last few moments. But I trust to your good 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 401 

faith with me as implicitly as when I began. If you knew how 
often I have tried to speak to you to-day, you would almost pity 
me. I want no new promise from you on my own account, for I 
am satisfied, and I always shall be satisfied, with the promise you 
have given me. I can venture to say no more, for I see that I am 
watched. If you will set my mind at rest with the assurance that 
you will interpose with the father and save this harmless girl, close 
that book before you return it to me, and I shall know what you 
mean, and deeply thank you in my heart. — Alfred, Mr. Twemlow 
thinks the last one the best, and quite agrees with you and me." 

Alfred advances. The groups break up. Lady Tippins rises 
to go, and Mrs. Veneering follows her leader. For the moment, 
Mrs. Lammle does not turn to them, but remains looking at 
Twemlow looking at Alfred's portrait through his eyeglass. The 
moment past, Twemlow drops his eyeglass at its ribbon's length, 
rises, and closes the book with an emphasis which makes that 
fragile nursling of the fairies, Tippins, start. 

Then good bye and good bye, and charming occasion worthy of 
the Golden Age, and more about the flitch of bacon, and the like 
of that ; and Twemlow goes staggering across Piccadilly with his 
hand to his forehead, and is nearly run down by a flushed letter- 
cart, and at last drops safe in his easy chair, innocent good gentle- 
man, with his hand to his forehead still and his head in a whirl. 



end of book ii. 
2d 



BOOK THE THIRD. — ^ LONa LANE. 
CHAPTER I. 

LODGBES IN QUEER STREET. 

It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark. 
Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was 
blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty 
spectre, divided in purpose between being visible and invisible, and 
so being wholly neither. Gaslights flared in the shops with a hag- 
gard and unblest air, as knowing themselves to be night-creatures 
that had no business abroad under the sun ; while the sun itself, 
when it was for a few moments dimly indicated through circling 
eddies of fog, showed as if it had gone out, and were collapsing 
flat and cold. Even in the surrounding country it was a foggy 
day, but there the fog was grey, whereas in London it was, 
at about the boundary line, dark yellow, and a little within it 
brown, and then browner, and then browner, until at the heart 
of the City — which call Saint Mary Axe — it was nisty-black. 
From any point of the high ridge of land northward, it might 
have been discerned that the loftiest buildings made an occasional 
struggle to get their heads above the foggy sea, and especially 
that the great dome of Saint Paul's seemed to die hard ; but 
this was not perceivable in the streets at their feet, where the 
whole metropolis was a heap of vapour charged with muffled 
sound of wheels, and enfolding a gigantic catarrh. 

At nine o'clock on such a morning, the place of business of 
Pubsey and Co. was not the liveliest object even in Saint Mary 
Axe — which is not a very lively spot — with a sobbing gas- 
light in the counting-house window, and a burglarious stream 
of fog creeping in to strangle it through the keyhole of the main 
door. But the light went out, and the main door opened, and 
Riah came forth with a bag under his arm. 

Almost in the act of coming out at the door, Riah went 

402 



OUK MUTUAL FRIEND. 403 

into the fog, and was lost to the eyes of Saint Mary Axe. But the 
eyes of this history can follow him westward, by Cornhill, Cheap- 
side, Fleet Street, and the Strand, to Piccadilly and the Albany. 
Thither he went at his grave and measured pace, staff in hand, 
skirt at heel ; and more than one head, turning to look back at 
his venerable figure already lost in the mist, supposed it to be 
some • ordinary figure indistinctly seen, which fancy and the fog 
had worked into that passing likeness. 

Arrived at the house in which his master's chambers were 
on the second floor, Riah proceeded up the stairs, and paused 
at Fascination Fledgeby's door. Making free with neither bell 
nor knocker, he struck upon the door with the top of his staff, 
and, having listened, sat down on the threshold. It was charac- 
teristic of his habitual submission, that he sat down on the raw 
dark staircase, as many of his ancestors had probably sat down 
in dungeons, taking what befell him as it might befall. 

After a time, when he had grown so cold as to be fain to 
blow upon his fingers, he arose and knocked with his staff 
again, and listened again, and again sat down to wait. Thrice 
he repeated these actions before his listening ears were greeted 
by the voice of Fledgeby, calling from his bed, " Hold your row ! 
— I'll come and open the door directly ! " But, in lieu of coming 
directly, he fell into a sweet sleep for some quarter of an hour 
more, during which added interval Riah sat upon the stairs and 
waited with perfect patience. 

At length the door stood open, and Mr. Fledgeby's retreating 
drapery plunged into bed again. Following it at a respectful 
distance, Riah passed into the bedchamber, where a fire had been 
some time lighted, and was burning briskly. 

"Why, what time of night do you mean to call it?" inquired 
Fledgeby, turning away beneath the clothes, and presenting a 
comfortable rampart of shoulder to the chilled figure of the old 
man." 

" Sir, it is full half-past ten in the morning." 

" The deuce it is ! Then it must be precious foggy ? " 

"Very foggy, sir." 

" And raw, then 1 " 

" Chill and bitter," said Riah, drawing out a handkerchief, and 
wiping the moisture from his beard and long grey hair as he 
stood on the verge of the rug, with his eyes on the acceptable 
fire. 

With a plunge of enjoyment, Fledgeby settled himself afresh. 

"Any snow, or sleet, or slush, or anything of that sort?" 
he asked. 



404 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"No, sir, no. Not quite so bad as that. The streets are 
pretty clean." 

"You needn't brag about it," returned Fledgeby, disappointed 
in his desire to heighten the contrast between his bed and the 
streets. " But you're always bragging about something. Got 
the books there ? " 

" They are here, sir." 

"All right. I'll turn the general subject over in my mind 
for a minute or two, and while I'm about it you can empty your 
bag and get ready for me." 

With another comfortable plunge, Mr. Fledgeby fell asleep 
again. The old man, having obeyed his directions, sat down on 
the edge of a chair, and, folding his hands before him, gradually 
yielded to the influence of the warmth, and dozed. He was 
roused by Mr. Fledgeby's appearing erect at the foot of the bed, 
in Turkish slippers, rose-coloured Turkish trousers (got cheap 
from somebody who had cheated some other somebody out of 
them), and a gown and cap to correspond. In that costume 
he would have left nothing to be desired, if he had been further 
fitted out with a bottomless chair, a lantern, and a bunch of 
matches. 

" Now, old 'un ! " cried Fascination, in his light raillery, 
" what dodgery are you up to next, sitting there with your eyes shut 1 
You ain't asleep. Catch a weasel at it, and catch a Jew ! " 

" Truly, sir, I fear I nodded," said the old man. 

" Not you ! " returned Fledgeby, with a cunning look. " A tell- 
ing move with a good many, I dare say, but it won't put me 
off my guard. Not a bad notion, though, if you want to look 
indifferent in driving a bargain. Oh, you are a dodger ! " 

The old man shook his head, gently repudiating the imputation, 
and suppressed a sigh, and moved to the table at which Mr. 
Fledgeby was now pouring out for himself a cup of steaming 
and fragrant coff'ee from a pot that had stood ready on the hob. 
It was an edifying spectacle, the young man in his easy chair 
taking his coff'ee, and the old man with his grey head bent, stand- 
ing awaiting his pleasure. 

" Now ! " said Fledgeby. " Fork out your balance in hand, and 
prove by figures how you make it out that it ain't more. First of 
all, light that candle." 

Riah obeyed, and then taking a bag from his breast, and refer- 
ring to the sum in the accounts for which they made him respon- 
sible, told it out upon the table. Fledgeby told it again with great 
care, and rang every sovereign. 

"I suppose," he said, taking one up to eye it closely, "you 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 405 

haven't been lightening any of these ; but it's a trade of your 
people's, you know. You understand what sweating a pound 
means ; don't you ? " 

"Much as you do, sir," returned the old man, with his hands 
under opposite cuffs of his loose sleeves, as he stood at the table, 
deferentially observant of the master's face. "May I take the 
liberty to say something ? " 

"You may," Fledgeby graciously conceded. 

" Do you not, sir — - without intending it — of a surety without 
intending it — sometimes mingle the character I fairly earn in your 
employment, with the character which it is your policy that I 
should bear ? " 

" I don't find it worth my while to cut things so fine as to go 
into the inquiry," Fascination coolly answered. 

" Not in justice ? " 

" Bother justice ! " said Fledgeby. 

" Not in generosity? " 

" Jews and generosity ! " said Fledgeby. " That's a good con- 
nection ! Bring out your vouchers, and don't talk Jerusalem 
palaver." 

The vouchers were produced, and for the next half-hour Mr. 
Fledgeby concentrated his sublime attention on them. They and 
the accounts were all found correct, and the books and the papers 
resumed their places in the bag. 

"Next," said Fledgeby, "concerning that bill-broking branch of 
the business ; the branch I like best. What queer bills are to be 
bought, and at what prices 1 You have got your list of what's in 
the market 1 " 

"Sir, a long list," replied Riah, taking out a pocket-book, and 
selecting from its contents a folded paper, which, being unfolded, 
became a sheet of foolscap covered with close writing. 

"Whew ! " whistled Fledgeby, as he took it in his hand. " Queer 
Street is full of lodgers just at present ! These are to be disposed 
of in parcels ; are they 1 " 

"In parcels as set forth," returned the old man, looking over his 
master's shoulder; "or the lump." 

"Half the lump will be waste-paper, one knows beforehand," 
said Fledgeby. "Can you get it at waste-paper price? That's 
the question." 

Riah shook his head, and Fledgeby cast his small eyes down the 
list. They presently began to twinkle, and he no sooner became 
conscious of their twinkling, than he looked up over his shoulder 
at the grave face above him, and moved to the chimney-piece. 
Making a desk of it, he stood there with his back to the old man, 



406 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

warming his knees, perusing the list at his leisure, and often return- 
ing to some lines of it, as though they were particularly interesting. 
At those times he glanced in the chimney-glass to see what note 
the old man took of him. He took none that could be detected, 
but, aware of his employer's suspicions, stood with his eyes on the 
ground. 

Mr. Fledgeby was thus amiably engaged when a step was heard 
at the outer door, and the door was heard to open hastily. " Hark ! 
That's your doing, you Pump of Israel," said Fledgeby ; "you can't 
have shut it." Then the step was heard within, and the voice 
of Mr. Alfred Lammle called aloud, "Are you anywhere here, 
Fledgeby ? " To which Fledgeby, after cautioning Riah in a low 
voice to take his cue as it should be given him, replied, " Here I 
am ! " and opened his bedroom door. 

" Come in ! " said Fledgeby. " This gentleman is only Pubsey 
and Co. of Saint Mary Axe, that I am trying to make terms for 
an unfortunate friend with in a matter of some dishonoured bills. 
But really Pubsey and Co. are so strict with their debtors, and so 
hard to move, that I seem to be wasting my time. Can't I make 
any terms with you on my friend's part, Mr. Riah 1 " 

"I am but the representative of another, sir," returned the Jew 
in a low voice. " I do as I am bidden by my principal. It is not 
my capital that is invested in the business. It is not my profit 
that arises therefrom." 

" Ha ha ! " laughed Fledgeby. " Lammle ? " 

" Ha ha ! " laughed Lammle. "Yes. Of course. We know." 

" Devilish good, ain't it, Lammle 1 " said Fledgeby, unspeakably 
amused by his hidden joke. 

"Always the same, always the same ! " said Lammle. " Mr. " 

"Riah, Pubsey and Co., Saint Mary Axe," Fledgeby put in, as 
he wiped away the tears that trickled from his eyes, so rare was 
his enjoyment of his secret joke. 

"Mr. Riah is bound to observe the invariable forms for such 
cases made and provided," said Lammle. 

"He is only the representative of another ! " cried Fledgeby. 
" Does as he is told by his principal ! Not his capital that's 
invested in the business. Oh, that's good ! Ha ha ha ha ! " Mr. 
Lammle joined in the laugh and looked knowing; and the more 
he did both, the more exquisite the secret joke became for Mr. 
Fledgeby. 

"However," said that fascinating gentleman, wiping his eyes 
again, " if we go on in this way, we shall seem to be almost 
making game of Mr. Riah, or of Pubsey and Co., Saint Mary Axe, 
or of somebody : which is far from our intention. Mr. Riah, if 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 407 

you would have the kindness to step into the next room for a few 
moments while I speak with Mr. Lammle here, I should like to 
try to make terms with you once again before you go." 

The old man, who had never raised his eyes during the whole 
transaction of Mr. Fledgeby's joke, silently bowed and passed out 
by the door which Fledgeby opened for him. Having closed it on 
him, Fledgeby returned to Lammle, standing with his back to the 
bedroom fire, with one hand under his coat-skirts, and all his 
whiskers in the other. 

" Halloa ! " said Fledgeby. " There's something wrong ! " 

" How do you know it ? " demanded Lammle. 

" Because you show it," replied Fledgeby in unintentional rhyme. 

"Well then; there is," said Lammle; "there is something 
wrong ; the whole thing's wrong." 

"I say ! " remonstrated Fascination very slowly, and sitting 
down with his hands on his knees to stare at his glowering friend 
with his back to the fire. 

"I tell you, Fledgeby," repeated Lammle, with a sweep of his 
right arm, " the whole thing's wrong. The game's up." 

" What game's up ? " demanded Fledgeby, as slowly as before, 
and more sternly. 

" The game. Our game. Read that." 

Fledgeby took a note from his extended hand and read it aloud. 
"Alfred Lammle, Esquire. Sir: Allow Mrs. Podsnap and myself 
to express our united sense of the polite attentions of Mrs. Alfred 
Lammle and yourself towards our daughter Georgiana. Allow us, 
also, wholly to reject them for the future, and to communicate our 
final desire that the two families may become entire strangers. I 
have the honour to be. Sir, your most obedient and very humble 
servant, John Podsnap." Fledgeby looked at the three blank 
sides of this note, quite as long and earnestly as at the first expres- 
sive side, and then looked at Lammle, who responded with another 
extensive sweep of his right arm. 

"Whose doing is this?" said Fledgeby. 

"Impossible to imagine," said Lammle. 

" Perhaps," suggested Fledgeby, after reflecting with a very dis- 
contented brow, " somebody has been giving you a bad character." 

" Or you," said Lammle, with a deeper frown. 

Mr. Fledgeby appeared to be on the verge of some mutinous 
expressions, when his hand happened to touch his nose. A certain 
remembrance connected with that feature operating as a timely 
warning, he took it thoughtfully between his thumb and fore- 
finger, and pondered ; Lammle meanwhile eyeing him with furtive 
eyes. 



408 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Well! "said Fledgeby. "This won't improve with talking 
about. If we ever find out who did it, we'll mark that person. 
There's nothing more to be said, except that you undertook to do 
what circumstances prevent your doing." 

" And that you undertook to do what you might have done by 
this time, if you had made a prompter use of circumstances," snarled 
Lammle. 

" Hah ! That," remarked Fledgeby, with his hands in the 
Turkish trousers, "is matter of opinion." 

"Mr. Fledgeby," said Lammle, in a bullying tone, "am I to 
understand that you in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatis- 
faction with me, in this affair 1 " 

"No," said Fledgeby; "provided you have brought my promis- 
sory note in your pocket, and now hand it over." 

Lammle produced it, not without reluctance. Fledgeby looked 
at it, identified it, twisted it up, and threw it into the fire. They 
both looked at it as it blazed, went out, and flew in feathery ash 
up the chimney. 

" lioiu, Mr. Fledgeby," Lammle said, as before ; " am I to under- 
stand that you in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatisfaction 
with me, in this affair ? " 

"No," said Fledgeby. 

" Finally and unreservedly no 1 " 

"Yes." 

" Fledgeby, my hand." 

Mr. Fledgeby took it, saying, " And if we ever find out who did 
this, we'll mark that person. And in the most friendly manner, 
let me mention one thing more. I don't know w^hat your circum- 
stances are, and I don't ask. You have sustained a loss here. Many 
men are liable to be involved at times, and you may be, or you may 
not be. But whatever you do, Lammle, don't — don't — don't, I 
beg of you — ever fall into the hands of Pubsey and Co. in the 
next room, for they are grinders. Regular flayers and grinders, 
my dear Lammle," repeated Fledgeby with a peculiar relish, "and 
they'll skin you by the inch, from the nape of your neck to the sole 
of your foot, and grind eveiy inch of your skin to tooth-powder. 
You have seen what Mr. Riah is. Never fall into his hands, 
Lammle, I beg of you as a friend ! " 

Mr. Lammle, disclosing some alarm at the solemnity of this 
affectionate adjuration, demanded why the devil he ever should fall 
into the hands of Pubsey and Co. 1 

" To confess the fact, I was made a little uneasy," said the can- 
did Fledgeby, " by the manner in which that Jew looked at you 
when he heard your name. I didn't like his eye. But it may 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 409 

have been the heated fancy of a friend. Of course, if you are sure 
that you have no personal security out, which you may not be 
quite equal to meeting, and which can have got into his hands, it 
must have been fancy. Still, I didn't like his eye." 

The brooding Lammle, with certain white dints coming and going 
in his palpitating nose, looked as if some tormenting imp were 
pinching it. Fledgeby, watching him with a twitch in his mean 
face which did duty there for a smile, looked very like the tormen- 
tor who was pinching. 

"But I mustn't keep him waiting too long," said Fledgeby, "or 
he'll revenge it on my unfortunate friend. How's your very clever 
and agreeable wife ? She knows we have broken down ? " 

" I showed her the letter." 

" Very much surprised ? " asked Fledgeby. 

" I think she would have been more so," answered Lammle, "if 
there had been more go in you ! " 

" Oh ! — She lays it upon me, then ? " 

" Mr. Fledgeby, I will not have my words misconstrued." 

"Don't break out, Lammle," urged Fledgeby, in a submissive 
tone, " because there's no occasion. I only asked a question. Then 
she don't lay it upon me % To ask another question." 

"No, sir." 

"Very good," said Fledgeby, plainly seeing that she did. "My 
compliments to her. Good bye ! " 

They shook hands, and Lammle strode out pondering. Fledgeby 
saw him into the fog, and, returning to the fire and musing with 
his face to it, stretched the legs of the rose-coloured Turkish trousers 
wide apart, and meditatively bent his knees, as if he were going 
down upon them. 

"You have a pair of whiskers, Lammle, which I never liked," 
murmured Fledgeby, "and which money can't produce; you are 
boastful of your manners and your conversation ; you wanted to 
pull my nose, and you have let me in for a failure, and your wife 
says I am the cause of it. I'll bowl you down. I will, though I 
have no whiskers," here he rubbed the places ^\^ere they were due, 
"and no manners, and no conversation ! " 

Having thus relieved his noble mind, he collected the legs of the 
Turkish trousers, straightened liimself on his knees, and called out 
to Riah in the next room, " Halloa, you sir ! " At sight of the old 
man re-entering with a gentleness monstrously in contrast with the 
character he had given him, Mr. Fledgeby was so tickled again, 
that he exclaimed, laughing, " Good ! Good ! Upon my soul it is 
uncommon good ! " 

" Now, old 'un," proceeded Fledgeby, when he had had his laugh 



410 OUR MUTUAL FEIEND. 

out, "you'll buy up these lots that I mark with my pencil — there's 
a tick there, and a tick there, and a tick there — and I wager two- 
pence you'll afterwards go on squeezing those Christians like the 
Jew you are. Now, next you'll want a cheque — or you'll say you 
want it, though you've capital enough somewhere, if one only 
knew where, but you'd be peppered and salted and grilled on a 
gridiron before you'd own to it — and that cheque I'll write." 

When he had unlocked a drawer and taken a key from it to open 
another drawer, in which was another key that opened another 
drawer, in which was another key that opened another drawer, in 
which was the cheque book ; and when he had written the cheque ; 
and when, reversing the key and drawer process, he had placed his 
cheque book in safety again ; he beckoned the old man, with the 
folded cheque, to come and take it. 

" Old 'un," said Fledgeby, when the Jew had put it in his pocket- 
book, and was putting that in the breast of his outer garment ; "so 
much at present for my affairs. Now a word about affairs that are 
not exactly mine. Where is she ? " 

With his hand not yet withdrawn from the breast of his garment, 
Riah started and paused. 

" Oho ! " said Fledgeby. " Didn't expect it ! Where have you 
hidden her?" 

Showing that he was taken by surprise, the old man looked at 
his master with some passing confusion, which the master highly 
enjoyed. 

" Is she in the house I pay rent and taxes for in Saint Mary 
Axe ? " demanded Fledgeby. 

"No, sir." 

" Is she in your garden up a-top of that house — gone up to be 
dead, or whatever the game is 1 " asked Fledgeby. 

"No, sir." 

"Where is she then?" 

Riah bent his eyes* upon the ground, as if considering whether 
he could answer the question Avithout breach of faith, and then 
silently raised them to Fledgeby's face, as if he could not. 

" Come ! " said Fledgeby. " I won't press that just now. But 
I want to know this, and I will know this, mind you. What are 
you up to ? " 

The old man, with an apologetic action of his head and hands, 
as not comprehending the master's meaning, addressed to him a 
look of mute inquiry. 

"You can't be a gallivanting dodger," said Fledgeby. "For 
you're a regular 'pity the sorrows,' you know — if you do know 
any Christian rhyme — 'whose trembling limbs have borne him to ' 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 411 

— et cetrer. You're one of the Patriarchs; you're a shaky old 
card ; and you can't be in love with this Lizzie ? " 

" Oh, sir ! " expostulated Riah. " Oh, sir, sir, sir ! " 

"Then why," retorted Fledgeby, with some slight tinge of a 
blush, " don't you out with your reason for having your spoon in the 
soup at all ? " 

"Sir, I will tell you the truth. But (your pardon for the 
stipulation) it is in sacred confidence; it is strictly upon 
honour." 

" Honour too ! " cried Fledgeby, with a mocking lip. " Honour 
among Jews. Well. Cut away." 

" It is upon honour, sir ? " the other still stipulated, with respect- 
ful firmness. 

"Oh, certainly. Honour bright," gaid Fledgeby. 

The old man, never bidden to sit down, stood with an earnest 
hand laid on the back of the young man's easy chair. The young 
man sat looking at the fire with a face of listening curiosity, ready 
to check him off and catch him tripping. 

"Cut away," said Fledgeby. " Start with your motive." 

" Sir, I have no motive but to help the helpless." 

Mr. Fledgeby could only express the feelings to which this 
incredible statement gave rise in his breast, by a prodigiously long 
derisive sniff. 

" How I came to know, and much to esteem and to respect, this 
damsel, I mentioned when you saw her in my poor garden on the 
house-top," said the Jew. 

" Did you ? " said Fledgeby, distrustfully. " Well, perhaps you 
did, though." 

" The better I knew her, the more interest I felt in her fortunes. 
They gathered to a crisis. I found her beset by a selfish and 
ungrateful brother, beset by an unacceptable wooer, beset by the 
snares of a more powerful lover, beset by the wiles of her own 
heart." 

" She took to one of the chaps then 1 " 

" Sir, it was only natural that she should incline towards him, for 
he had many and great advantages. But he was not of her station, 
and to marry her was not in his mind. Perils were closing 
round her, and the circle was fast darkening, when I — being as 
you have said, sir, too old and broken to be suspected of any feel- 
ing for her but a father's — stepped in, and counselled flight. I 
said, ' My daughter, there are times of moral danger when the hard- 
est virtuous resolution to form is flight, and when the most heroic 
bravery is flight.' She answered, she had had this in her thoughts; 
but whither to fly without help she knew not, and there were none 



412 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

to help her. I showed her there was one to help her, and it was I. 
And she is gone." 

" What did you do with her 1 " asked Fledgeby, feeling his cheek. 

"I placed her," said the old man, "at a distance;" with a 
grave smooth outward sweep from one another of his two open 
hands at arm's length ; " at a distance — among certain of our peo- 
ple, where her industry would serve her, and where she could hope 
to exercise it, unassailed from any quarter," 

Fledgeby's eyes had come from the fire to notice the action of 
his hands when he said " at a distance." Fledgeby now tried (very 
unsuccessfully) to imitate that action, as he shook his head and 
said, " Placed her in that direction, did you? Oh, you circular old 
dodger ! " 

With one hand across his breast and the other on the easy chair, 
Riah, without justifying himself, waited for further questioning. 
But, that it was hopeless to question him on that one reserved 
point, Fledgeby, with his small eyes too near together, saw full 
well. 

"Lizzie," said Fledgeby, looking at the fire again, and then look- 
ing up. " Humph, Lizzie. You didn't tell me the other name in 
your garden a-top of the house. I'll be more communicative with 
you. The other name's Hexam." 

Riah bent his head in assent. 

" Look here, you sir," said Fledgeby. " I have a notion I know 
something of the inveigHng chap, the powerful one. Has he any- 
thing to do with the law 1 " 

" Nominally, I believe it his calling." 

"I thought so. Name anything like Lightwood?" 

" Sir, not at all like." 

"Come, old 'un," said Fledgeby, meeting his eyes with a wink, 
" say the name." 

" Wrayburn." 

" By Jupiter ! " cried Fledgeby. " That one, is it? I thought 
it might be the other, but I never dreamt of that one. I shouldn't 
object to your balking either of the pair, dodger, for they are both 
conceited enough ; but that one is as cool a customer as ever I met 
with. Got a beard besides, and presumes upon it. Well done, 
old 'un ! Go on and prosper ! " 

Brightened by this unexpected commendation, Riah asked were 
there more instructions for him 1 

"No," said Fledgeby, "you may toddle now, Judah, and grope 
about on the orders you have got." Dismissed with those pleasing 
words, the old man took his broad hat and staff", and left the great 
presence : more as if he were some superior creature benignantly 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 413 

blessing Mr. Fiedgeby, than the poor dependant on whom he set his 
foot. Left alone, Mr. Fiedgeby locked his outer door, and came 
back to his fire. 

" Well done you ! " said Fascination to himself. " Slow, you 
may be ; sure, you are ! " This he twice or thrice repeated with 
much complacency, as he again dispersed the legs of the Turkish 
trousers and bent the knees. 

" A tidy shot that, I flatter myself," he then soliloquised. " And 
a Jew brought down with it ! Now, when I heard the story told at 
Lammle's, I didn't make a jump at Riah. Not a bit of it ; I got 
at him by degrees." Herein he was quite accurate ; it being his 
habit not to jump, or leap, or make an upward spring, at anything 
in life, but to crawl at everything. 

" I got at him," pursued Fiedgeby, feeling for his whiskers, " by 
degrees. If your Lammles or your Lightwoods had got at him 
anyhow, they would have asked him the question whether he hadn't 
something to do with that gal's disappearance. I knew a better 
way of going to work. Having got behind the hedge, and put 
him in the light, I took a shot at him and brought him down 
plump. Oh ! It don't count for much, being a Jew, in a match 
against me ! " 

Another dry twist in place of a smile, made his face crooked 
here. 

"As to Christians," proceeded Fiedgeby, "look out, fellow- 
Christians, particularly you that lodge in Queer Street ! I have got 
the run of Queer Street now, and you shall see some games there. 
To work a lot of power over you and you not know it, knowing as 
you think yourselves, would be almost worth laying out money 
upon. But when it comes to squeezing a profit out of you into the 
bargain, it's something like ! " 

With this apostrophe Mr. Fiedgeby appropriately proceeded to 
divest himself of his Turkish garments, and invest himself with 
Christian attire. Pending which operation, and his morning ablu- 
tions, and his anointing of himself with the last infallible prepa- 
ration for the production of luxuriant and glossy hair upon the 
human countenance (quacks being the only sages he believed in 
besides usurers), the murky fog closed about him and shut him up 
in its sooty embrace. If it had never let him out any more, the 
world would have had no irreparable loss, but could have easily 
replaced him from its stock on hand. 



414 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

CHAPTER 11. . 

A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT. 

In the evening of this same foggy day when the yellow window- 
blind of Pubsey and Co. was drawn down upon the day's work, 
Riah the Jew once more came forth into Saint Maiy Axe. But 
this time he carried no bag, and was not bound on his master's 
affairs. He passed over London Bridge, and returned to the 
Middlesex shore by that of Westminster, and so, ever wading 
through the fog, waded to the doorstep of the dolls' dressmaker. 

Miss Wren expected him. He could see her through the win- 
dow by the light of her low fire — carefully banked up with damp 
cinders that it might last the longer and waste the less when she 
went out — sitting waiting for him in her bonnet. His tap at 
the glass roused her from the musing solitude in which she sat, 
and she came to the door to open it ; aiding her steps with a little 
crutch-stick. 

" Good evening, godmother ! " said Miss Jenny Wren. 

The old man laughed, and gave her his arm to lean on. 

" Won't you come in and warm yourself, godmother 1 " asked 
Miss Jenny Wren. 

"Not if you are ready, Cinderella, my dear." 

"Well! " exclaimed Miss Wren, delighted. "Now you are a 
clever old boy ! If we gave prizes at this establishment (but we 
only keep blanks), you should have the first silver medal, for tak- 
ing me up so quick." As she spake thus. Miss Wren removed the 
key of the house- door from the keyhole and put it in her pocket, 
and then bustlingly closed the door, and tried it as they both stood 
on the step. Satisfied that her dwelling was safe, she drew one 
hand through the old man's arm and prepared to ply her crutch- 
stick with the other. But the key was an instrument of such 
gigantic proportions, that before they started Riah proposed to 
carry it. 

"No, no, no! I'll carry it myself," returned Miss Wren. 
" I'm awfully lopsided, you know, and stowed down in my pocket 
it'll trim the ship. To let you into a secret, godmother, I wear 
my pocket on my high side, o' purpose." 

With that they began their plodding through the fog. 

" Yes, it was truly sharp of you, godmother," resumed Miss 
Wren with great approbation, " to understand me. But, you s^e, 
you are so like the fairy godmother in the bright little books ! 
You look so unlike the rest of people, and so much as if you had 
changed yourself into that shape, just this moment, with some 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.' 415 

benevolent object. Boh ! " cried Miss Jenny, putting her face 
close to the old man's. " I can see your features, godmother, be- 
hind the beard." 

" Does the fancy go to my changing other objects too, Jenny ? " 

"Ah ! That it does ! If you'd only borrow my stick and tap 
this piece of pavement — this dirty stone that my foot taps — it 
would start up a coach and six. I say ! Let's believe so ! " 

"With all my heart," replied the good old man. 

"And I'll tell you what I must ask you to do, godmother. I 
must ask you to be so kind as give my child a tap, and change 
him altogether. Oh, my child has been such a bad, bad child of 
late ! It worries me nearly out of my wits. Not done a stroke of 
work these ten days. Has had the horrors, too, and fancied that 
four copper-coloured men in red wanted to throw him into a fiery 
furnace." 

"But that's dangerous, Jenny?" 

"Dangerous, godmother? My bad child is always dangerous, 
more or less. He might " — here the little creature glanced back 
over her shoulder at the sky — "be setting the house on fire at 
this present moment. I don't know who would have a child, for 
my part ! It's no use shaking him. I have shaken him till I 
have made myself giddy. ' Why don't you mind your Command- 
ments and honour your parent, you naughty old boy ? ' I said to 
him all the time. But he only whimpered and stared at me." 

" What shall be changed, after him 1 " asked Riah in a com- 
passionately playful voice. 

" Upon my word, godmother, I am afraid I must be selfish next, 
and get you to set me right in the back and the legs. It's a little 
thing to you with your power, godmother, but it's a great deal to 
poor weak aching me." 

There was no querulous complaining in the words, but they 
were not the less touching for that. 

"And then?" 

"Yes, and then — ^ou know, godmother. We'll both jump 
into the coach and six and go to Lizzie. This reminds me, god- 
mother, to ask you a serious question. You are as wise as wise can 
be (having been brought up by the fairies), and you can tell me this : 
Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have 
had it?" 

"Explain, goddaughter." 

" I feel so much more solitary and helpless without Lizzie now, 
than I used to feel before I knew her." (Tears were in her eyes 
as she said so.) 

" Some beloved companionship fades out of most lives, my dear," 



416 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

said the Jew, — " th;)t of a wife, and a fair daughter, and a son 
of promise, has faded out of my own Ufe — but the happiness was." 

"Ah!" said Miss Wren thoughtfully, by no means convinced, 
and chopping the exclamation with that sharp little hatchet of 
hers ; " then I tell you what change I think you had better begin 
with, godmother. You had better change Is into Was and Was 
into Is, and keep them so." 

"Would that suit your case? Would you not be always in 
pain then 1 " asked the old man tenderly. 

"Right!" exclaimed Miss Wren with another chop. "You 
have changed me wiser, godmother. — Not," she added with the 
quaint hitch of her chin and eyes, " that you need be a very won- 
derful godmother to do that deed." 

Thus conversing, and having crossed Westminster Bridge, they 
traversed the ground that Riah had lately traversed, and new 
ground likewise ; for, when they had recrossed the Thames by way 
of London Bridge, they struck down by the river and held their 
still foggier course that way. 

But previously, as they were going along, Jenny twisted her 
venerable friend aside to a brilliantly-lighted toy-shop window, and 
said : " Now look at 'em. All my work ! " 

This referred to a dazzling semi-circle of dolls in all the colours of 
the rainbow, who were dressed for presentation at court, for going 
to balls, for going out driving, for going out on horseback, for 
going out walking, for going to get married, for going to help other 
dolls to get married, for all the gay events of life. 

" Pretty, pretty, pretty ! " said the old man with a clap of his 
hands. " Most elegant taste." 

"Glad you like 'em," returned Miss Wren, loftily. "For the 
fun is, godmother, how I make the great ladies try my dresses on. 
Though it's the hardest part of my business, and would be, even if 
my back were not bad and my legs queer." 

He looked at her as not understanding what she said. 

" Bless you, godmother," said Miss Wren, " I have to scud about 
town at all hours. If it was only, sitting at my bench, cutting out 
and sewing, it would be comparatively easy work ; but it's the 
trying-on by the great ladies that takes it out of me." 

" How, the trying-on?" asked Riah. 

" What a mooney godmother you are, after all ! " returned Miss 
Wren. " Look here. There's a Drawing Room, or a grand day in 
the Park, or a Show, or a Fete, or what you like. Veiy well. I 
squeeze among the crowd, and I look about me. When I see a 
great lady very suitable for my business, I say, 'You'll do, my 
dear ! " and I take particular notice of her, and run home and cut 



■iiiif^^M 



li^H^iiiS 




TRYING ON FOR THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER. 

2e 



418 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

her out and baste her. Then another day, I come scudding bacTc 
again to try on, and then I take particular notice of her again. 
Sometimes she plainly seems to say, ' How that little creature is 
staring ! ' and sometimes likes it and sometimes don't, but much 
more often yes than no. All the time I am only saying to myself, 
' I must hollow out a bit here ; I must slope away there ; ' and I 
am making a perfect slave of her, with making her try on my 
doll's dress. Evening parties are severer work for me, because 
there's only a doorway for a full view, and what with hobbling 
among the wheels of the carriages and the legs of the horses, I 
fully expect to be run over some night. However, there I have 
'em, just the same. When they go bobbing into the hall from the 
cai'riage, and catch a glimpse of my little physiognomy poked out 
from behind a policeman's cape in the rain, I dare say they think 
I am wondering and admiring with all my eyes and heart, but they 
little think they're only working for my dolls ! There was Lady 
Belinda Whitrose. I made her do double duty in one night. I 
said when she came out of the carriage, ' You'll do, my dear ! ' and 
I ran straight home and cut her out and basted her. Back I came 
again, and waited behind the men that called the carriages. Very 
bad night too. At last ' Lady Belinda Whitrose's carriage ! Lady 
Belinda Whitrose coming down ! ' And I made her try on — oh ! 
and take pains about it too — before she got seated. That's Lady 
Belinda hanging up by the waist, much too near the gaslight for a 
wax one, with her toes turned in." 

When they had plodded on for some time nigh the river, Kiah 
asked the way to a certain tavern called the Six Jolly Fellowship 
Porters. Following the directions he received, they arrived, after 
two or three puzzled stoppages for consideration, and some uncer- 
tain looking about them, at the door of Miss Abbey Potterson's 
dominions. A peep through the glass portion of the door revealed 
to them the glories of the bar, and Miss Abbey herself seated in 
state on her snug tlirone, reading the newspaper. To whom, with 
deference, they presented themselves. 

Taking her eyes off her newspaper, and pausing with a sus- 
pended expression of countenance, as if she must finish the para- 
graph in hand before undertaking any other business whatever. 
Miss Abbey demanded, with some slight asperity, "Now then, 
what's for you 1 " 

" Could we see Miss Potterson ? " asked the old man, uncover- 
ing his head. 

"You not only could, but you can and you do," replied the 
hostess. 

" Might wc speak with you, madam ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 419 

By this time Miss Abbey's eyes had possessed themselves of 
the small figure of Miss Jenny Wren. For the closer observation 
of which Miss Abbey laid aside her newspaper, rose, and looked 
over the half-door of the bar. The crutch-stick seemed to entreat 
for its owner leave to come in and rest by the fire ; so. Miss Abbey 
opened the half-door, and said, as though replying to the crutch- 
stick : " Yes, come in and rest by the fire." 

"My name is Riah," said the old man, with courteous action, 
"and my avocation is in London city. This, my young com- 
panion " 

" Stop a bit," interposed Miss Wren. " I'll give the lady my 
card." She produced it from her pocket with an air, after strug- 
gling with the gigantic door-key which had got upon the top of it 
and kept it down. Miss Abbey, with manifest tokens of astonish- 
ment, took the diminutive document, and found it to run concisely 
thus : — 



Miss JENNY WREN, 
dolls' deessmaker. 

Dolls attended at their own residences. 



" Lud ! " exclaimed Miss Potterson, staring. And dropped the 
card. 

" We take the liberty of coming, my young companion and I, 
madam," said Riah, "on behalf of Lizzie Hexam." 

Miss Potterson was stooping to loosen the bonnet-strings of the 
dolls' dressmaker. She looked round rather angrily, and said : 
" Lizzie Hexam is a very proud young woman." 

"She would be so proud," returned Riah, dexterously, "to stand 
well in your good opinion, that before she quitted London for " 

" For where, in the name of the Cape of Good Hope 1 " asked 
Miss Potterson, as though supposing her to have emigrated. 

" For the country," was the cautious answer, — "she made us 
promise to come and show you a paper, which she left in our hands 
for that special purpose. I am an unserviceable friend of hers, 
who began to know her after her departure from this neighbour- 
hood. She has been for some time living with my young com- 
panion, and has been a helpful and a comfortable friend to her. 
Much needed, madam," he added, in a lower voice. " Believe me ; 
if you knew all, much needed." 

" I can believe that," said Miss Abbey, with a softening glance 
at the little creature. 



420 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" And if it's proud to have a heart that never hardens, and a 
temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts," Miss Jenny 
struck in, flushed, " she is proud. And if it's not, she is not." 

Her set purpose of contradicting Miss Aljbey point blank, was 
so far from offending that dread authority, as to eUcit a gracious 
smile. "You do right, child," said Miss Abbey, "to speak well 
of those who deserve well of you." 

" Right or wrong," muttered Miss Wren, inaudibly, with a visi- 
ble hitch of her chin, " I mean to do it, and you may make up 
your mind to that, old lady." 

" Here is the paper, madam," said the Jew, delivering into Miss 
Potterson's hands the original document drawn up by Rokesmith, 
and signed by Riderhood. " Will you please to read it ? " 

"But first of all," said Miss Abbey, " — did you ever taste 
shrub, child?" 

Miss Wren shook her head. 

"Should you like to?" 

" Should if it's good," returned Miss Wren. 

" You shall try. And, if you find it good, I'll mix some for you 
with hot water. Put your poor little feet on the fender. It's a 
cold, cold night, and the fog clings so." As Miss Abbey helped 
her to turn her chair, her loosened bonnet dropped on the floor. 
"Why, what lovely hair ! " cried Miss Abbey. "And enough to 
make wigs for all the dolls in the world. What a quantity ! " 

" Call that a quantity 1 " returned Miss AVren. " Poof ! What 
do you say to the rest of it ? " As she spoke, she untied a band, 
and the golden stream fell over herself and over the chair, and 
flowed down to the ground. Miss Abbey's admiration seemed to 
increase her perplexity. She beckoned the Jew towards her, as 
she reached down the 'shrub-bottle from its niche, and whispered: 

" Child, or woman 1 " 

"Child in years," was the answer; "woman in self-reliance and 
trial." 

"You are talking about Me, good people," thought Miss Jenny, 
sitting in her golden bower, warming her feet. "I can't hear 
what you say, but I know your tricks and your manners ! " 

The shrub, when tasted from a spoon, perfectly harmonising with 
Miss Jenny's palate, a judicious amount was mixed by Miss Potter- 
son's skilful hands, whereof Riah too partook. After this prelimin- 
ary. Miss Abbey read the document ; and, as often as she raised her 
eyebrows in so doing, the watchful Miss Jenny accompanied the 
action with an expressive and emphatic sip of the shrub and water. 

"As far as this goes," said Miss Abbey Potterson, when she had 
read it several times, and thought about it, "it proves (what didn't 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 421 

much need proving) that Rogue Riderhood is a villain. I have 
my doubts whether he is not the villain who solely did the deed ; 
but I have no expectation of those doubts ever being cleared up now. 
I believe I did Lizzie's father wrong, but never Lizzie's self; 
because when things were at the worst I trusted her, had perfect 
confidence in her, and tried to persuade her to come to me for a 
refuge. I am very sorry to have done a man wrong, particularly 
when it can't be undone. Be kind enough to let Lizzie know what 
I say ; not forgetting that if she will come to the Porters, after 
all, bygones being bygones, she will find a home at the Porters, 
and a friend at the Porters. She knows Miss Abbey of old, remind 
her, and she knows what-like the home, and what-like the friend, 
is likely to turn out. I am generally short and sweet — or short 
and sour, according as it may be and as opinions vary — " re- 
marked Miss Abbey, " and that's about all I have got to say, and 
enough too." 

But before the shrub and water was sipped out. Miss Abbey 
bethought herself that she would like to keep a copy of the paper 
by her. "It's not long, sir," said she to Riah, "and perhaps you 
wouldn't mind just jotting it down." The old man willingly put 
on his spectacles, and, standing at the little desk in the corner 
where Miss Abbey filed her receipts and kept her sample phials 
(customers' scores were interdicted by the strict administration of 
the Porters), wrote out the copy in a fair round character. As 
he stood there, doing his methodical penmanship, his ancient scribe- 
like figure intent upon the work, and the little dolls' dressmaker 
sitting in her golden bower before the fire, Miss Abbey had her 
doubts whether she had not dreamed those two rare figures into 
the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowships, and might not wake with a 
nod next moment and find them gone. 

Miss Abbey had twice made the experiment of shutting her 
eyes and opening them again, still finding the figures there, when, 
dream-like, a confused hubbub arose in the public room. As she 
started up, and they all three looked at one another, it became a 
noise of clamouring voices and of the stir of feet ; then all the 
windows were heard to be hastily thrown up, and shouts and cries 
came floating into the house from the river. A moment more, 
and Bob Gliddery came clattering along the passage, with the noise 
of all the nails in his boots condensed into every separate nail. 

" What is it ? " asked Miss Abbey. 

"It's summut run down in the fog, ma'am," answered Bob. 
" There's ever so many people in the river." 

" Tell 'em to put on all the kettles ! " cried Miss Abbey. " See 
that the boiler's full. Get a bath out. Hang some blankets to 



422 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

the fire. Heat some stone bottles. Have your senses about you, 
you girls down-stairs, and use 'em." 

While Miss Abbey partly delivered these directions to Bob — 
whom she seized by the hair, and whose head she knocked against 
the wall, as a general injunction to vigilance and presence of mind 

— and partly hailed the kitchen with them — the company in the 
public room, jostling one another, rushed out to the causeway, and 
the outer noise increased. 

" Come and look," said Miss Abbey to her visitors. They all 
three hurried to the vacated public room, and passed by one of the 
windows into the wooden verandah overhanging the river. 

"Does anybody down there know what has happened?" de- 
manded Miss Abbey, in her voice of authority. 

" It's a steamer, Miss Abbey," cried one blurred figure in the fog. 

" It always is a steamer. Miss Abbey," cried another. 

" Them's her lights. Miss Abbey, wot you see a blinking yonder," 
cried another. 

" She's a blowing off her steam. Miss Abbey, and that's what 
makes the fog and the noise worse, don't you see ? " exclaimed 
another. 

Boats were putting off, torches were lighting up, people were 
rushing tumultuously to the water's edge. Some man fell in with 
a splash, and was pulled out again with a roar of laughter. The 
drags were called for. A cry for the life buoy passed from mouth 
to mouth. It was impossible to make out what was going on 
upon the river, for every boat that put off sculled into the fog and 
was lost to view at a boat's length. Nothing was clear but that 
the unpopular steamer was assailed with reproaches on all sides. 
She was the Murderer, bound for Gallows Bay ; she was the Man- 
slaughterer, bound for Penal Settlement ; her captain ought to be 
tried for his life ; her crew ran down men in row-boats wdth a relish ; 
she mashed up Thames lightermen with her paddles; she fired 
property with her funnels ; she always was, and she always would 
be, wreaking destruction upon somebody or something, after the 
manner of all her kind. The whole bulk of the fog teemed with 
such taunts, uttered in tones of universal hoarseness. All the 
while, the steamer's lights moved spectrally a very little, as she 
lay-to, waiting the upshot of whatever accident had happened. 
Now, she began burning blue-lights. These made a luminous 
patch about her, as if she had set the fog on fire, and in the patch 

— the cries changing their note, and becoming more fitful and 
more excited — shadows of men and boats could be seen moving, 
while voices shouted: "There!" "There again!" "A couple 
more strokes ahead ! " " Hurrah ! " " Look out ! " " Hold on ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 423 

"Haul in !" and the like. Lastly, with a few tumbling clots of 
blue fire, the night closed in dark again, the wheels of the steamer 
were heard revolving, and her lights glided smoothly away in the 
direction of the sea. 

It appeared to Miss Abbey and her two companions that a con- 
siderable time had been thus occupied. There was now as eager a 
set towards the shore beneath the house as there had been from it ; 
and it was only on the first boat of the rush coming in that it was 
known what had occurred. 

"If that's Tom Tootle," Miss Abbey made proclamation, in her 
most commanding tones, "let him instantly come underneath here." 

The submissive Tom complied, attended by a crowd. 

" What is it. Tootle ? " demanded Miss Abbey. 

" It's a foreign steamer. Miss, run down a wherry." 

" How many in the wherry ? " 

" One man. Miss Abbey." 

" Found ? " 

"Yes. He's been under water a long time. Miss; but they've 
grappled up the body." 

" Let 'em bring it here. You, Bob Gliddery, shut the house- 
door and stand by it on the inside, and don't you open till 
I tell you. Any police down there?" 

" Here, Miss Abbey," was the official rejoinder. 

"After they have brought the body in, keep the crowd out, 
will you ? And help Bob Gliddery to shut 'em out." 

"All right. Miss Abbey." 

The autocratic landlady withdrew into the house with Riah 
and Miss Jenny, and disposed those forces, one on either side 
of her, within the half-door of the bar, as behind a breastwork. 

"You two stand close here," said Miss Abbey, "and you'll 
come to no hurt, and see it brought in. Bob, you stand by the 
door." 

That sentinel, smartly giving his rolled shirt-sleeves an extra 
and a final tuck on his shoulders, obeyed. 

Sound of advancing voices, sound of advancing steps. Shuffic 
and talk without. Momentary pause. Two peculiarly blunt 
knocks or pokes at the door, as if the dead man arriving on 
his back were striking at it with the soles of his motionless feet. 

"That's the stretcher, or the shutter, whichever of the two 
they are carrying," said Miss Abbey, with experienced ear. " Open, 
you Bob ! " 

Door opened. Heavy tread of laden men. A halt. A rush. 
Stoppage of rush. Door shut. Baffled hoots from the vexed 
souls of disappointed outsiders. 



424 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Come on, men ! " said Miss Abbey ; for so potent was she 
with her subjects that even then the bearers awaited her per- 
mission. "First floor." 

The entry being low, and the staircase being low, they so took 
up the burden they had set down, as to carry that low. The 
recumbent figure, in passing, lay hardly as high as the half-door. 

Miss Abbey started back at sight of it. " Why, good God ! " 
said she, turning to her two companions, "that's the very man 
who made the declaration we have just had in our hands. That's 
Riderhood ! " 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SAME RESPECTED FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS THAN ONE. 

In sooth, it is Riderhood and no other, or it is the outer husk 
and shell of Riderhood and no other, that is borne into Miss 
Abbey's first-floor bedroom. Supple to twist and turn as the 
Rogue has ever been, he is suflficiently rigid now ; and not with- 
out much shufiling of attendant feet, and tilting of his bier this 
way and that way, and peril even of his sliding ofi" it and 
being tumbled in a heap over the balustrades, can he be got 
up-stairs. 

"Fetch. a doctor," quoth Miss Abbey. And then, "Fetch his 
daughter." On both of which errands, quick messengers depart. 

The doctor-seeking .messenger meets the doctor halfway, com- 
ing under convoy of police. Doctor examines the dank carcase, 
and pronounces, not hopefully, that it is worth while trying 
to reanimate the same. All the best means are at once in action, 
and everybody present lends a hand, and a heart and soul. No 
one has the least regard for the man ; with them all, he has been 
an object of avoidance, suspicion, and aversion ; but the spark of 
life within him is curiously separable from himself now, and they 
have a deep interest in it, probably because it is life, and they 
are living and must die. 

In answer to the doctor's inquiry how did it happen, and was 
any one to blame, Tom Tootle gives in his verdict, unavoidable 
accident and no one to blame but the sufferer. " He was slinking 
about in his boat," says Tom, "which slinking were, not to 
speak ill of the dead, the manner of the man, when he come right 
athwart the steamer's bows and she cut him in two." Mr. 
Tootle is so far figurative, touching the dismemberment, as that 
he means the boat, and not the man. For, the man lies whole 
before them. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 426 

Captain Joey, the bottle-nosed regular customer in the glazed 
hat, is a pupil of the much-respected old school, and (having insinu- 
ated himself into the chamber, in the execution of the impor- 
tant service of carrying the drowned man's neckerchief) favours 
the doctor with a sagacious old-scholastic suggestion that the 
body should be hung up by the heels, " sim'lar," says Captain 
Joey, "to mutton in a butcher's shop," and should then, as a 
particularly choice manoeuvre for promoting easy respiration, be 
rolled upon casks. These scraps of the wisdom of the Captain's 
ancestors are received with such speechless indignation by Miss 
Abbey, that she instantly seizes the Captain by the collar, and 
without a single word ejects him, not presuming to remonstrate, 
from the scene. 

There then remain, to assist the doctor and Tom, only those 
three other regular customers. Bob Glamour, William Williams, 
and Jonathan (family name of the latter, if any, unknown to 
mankind), who are quite enough. Miss Abbey having looked in 
to make sure that nothing is wanted, descends to the bar, and 
there awaits the result, with the gentle Jew and Miss Jenny 
Wren. 

If you are not gone for good, Mr. Riderhood, it would be 
something to know where you are hiding at present. This flabby 
lump of mortality that we work so hard at with such patient 
perseverance, yields no sign of you. If you are gone for good. 
Rogue, it is very solemn, and if you are coming back, it is hardly 
less so. Nay, in the suspense and mystery of the latter question, 
involving that of where you may be now, there is a solemnity 
even added to that of death, making us who are in attendance 
alike afraid to look on you and to look off you, and making those 
below start at the least sound of a creaking plank in the floor. 

Stay ! Did that eyelid tremble ? So the doctor, breathing 
low, and closely watching, asks himself. 

No. 

Did that nostril twitch ? 

No. 

This artificial respiration ceasing, do I feel any faint flutter 
under my hand upon the chest? 

No. 

Over and over again No. No. But try over and over again, 
nevertheless. 

See ! ■ A token of life ! An indubitable token of life ! The spark 
may smoulder and go out, or it may glow and expand, but see ! 
The four rough fellows seeing, shed tears. Neither Riderhood in 
this world, nor Riderhood in the other, coidd draw tears from 



426 OUR MUTUAL ERIEND. 

them; but a striving human soul between the two can do it 
easily. 

He is struggling to come back. Now he is almost here, now 
he is far away again. Now he is struggling harder to get back. 
And yet — like us all, when we swoon — Hke us all, every day 
of our lives when we wake — he is instinctively unwilling to be 
restored to the consciousness of this existence, and would be left 
dormant, if he could. 

Bob Gliddery returns with Pleasant Eiderhood, who was out 
when sought for, and hard to find. She has a shawl over her 
head, and her first action, when she takes it off" weeping, and 
curtseys to Miss Abbey, is to wind her hair up. 

" Thank you. Miss Abbey, for having father here." 

" I am bound to say, girl, I didn't know who it was," returns 
Miss Abbey; "but I hope it would have been pretty much the 
same if I had known." 

Poor Pleasant, fortified with a sip of brandy, is ushered into the 
first-floor chamber. She could not express much sentiment about 
her father if she were called upon to pronounce his funeral oration, 
but she has a greater tenderness for him than he ever had for her, 
and crying bitterly when she sees him stretched unconscious, asks 
the doctor with clasped hands : " Is there no hope, sir ? Oh, poor 
father ! Is poor father dead 1 " 

To which the doctor, on one knee beside the body, busy and 
watchful, only rejoins without looking round: "Now, my girl, 
unless you have the self-command to be perfectly quiet, I cannot 
allow you to remain in the room." 

Pleasant, consequently, wipes her eyes with her back-hair, which 
is in fresh need of being wound up, and having got it out of the 
way, watches with terrified interest all that goes on. Her natural 
woman's aptitude soon renders her able to give a little help. Antici- 
pating the doctor's want of this or that, she quietly has it ready 
for him, and so by degrees is intrusted with the charge of support- 
ing her father's head upon her arm. 

It is something so new to Pleasant to see her father an object of 
sympathy and interest, to find any one very willing to tolerate his 
society in this world, not to say pressingly and soothingly entreat- 
ing him to belong to it, that it gives her a sensation she never 
experienced before. Some hazy idea that if affairs could remain 
thus for a long time it would be a respectable change, floats in her 
mind. Also some vague idea that the old evil is drowned out of 
him, and that if he should happily come back to resume his occupa- 
tion of the empty form that lies upon the bed, his spirit will be 
altered. In which state of mind she kisses the stony lips, and 



428 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

quite believes that the impassive hand she chafes will revive a 
tender hand, if it revive ever. 

Sweet delusion for Pleasant Riderhood. But they minister to 
him with such extraordinary interest, their anxiety is so keen, their 
vigilance is so great, their excited joy gi'ows so intense as the signs 
of life strengthen, that how can she resist it, poor thing ! And 
now he begins to breathe naturally, and he stirs, and the doctor 
declares him to have come back from that inexplicable journey 
where he stopped on the dark road, and to be here. 

Tom Tootle, who is nearest to the doctor when he says this, 
grasps the doctor fervently by the hand. Bob Glamour, William 
Williams, and Jonathan of the no surname, all shake hands with 
one another round, and with the doctor too. Bob Glamour blows 
his nose, and Jonathan of the no surname is moved to do likewise, but 
lacking a pocket-handkerchief, abandons that outlet for his emotion. 
Pleasant sheds tears deserving her own name, and her sweet delu- 
sion is at its height. 

There is intelligence in his eyes. He wants to ask a question. 
He wonders where he is. Tell him. 

" Father, you were run down on the river, and are at Miss Abbey 
Potterson's." 

He stares at his daughter, stares all around him, closes his eyes, 
and lies slumbering on her arm. 

The short-lived delusion begins to fade. The low, bad, unim- 
pressible face is coming up from the depths of the river, or what 
other depths, to the surface again. As he grows warm, the doctor 
and the four men cool. As his lineaments soften with life, their 
faces and their hearts harden to him. 

" He will do now," says the doctor, washing his hands, and 
looking at the patient with growing disfavour. 

"Many a better man," moralises Tom Tootle, with a gloomy 
shake of the head, "ain't had his luck." 

" It's to be hoped he'll make a better use of his life," says Bob 
Glamour, " than I expect he will." 

" Or than he done afore ! " adds William Williams. 

" But no, not he ! " says Jonathan of the no surname, clinching 
the quartette. 

They speak in a low tone because of his daughter, but she sees 
that they have all drawn off, and that they stand in a group at the 
other end of the room, shunning him. It would be too much to 
suspect them of being sorry tliat he didn't die when he had done 
so much towards it, but they clearly wish that they had had a 
better subject to bestow their pains on. Intelligence is conveyed 
to Miss Abbey in the bar, who reappears on the scene, and contem- 



OUR MUTUAL TRIEND. 429 

plates from a distance, holding whispered discourse with the doctor. 
The spark of life was deeply interesting while it was in abeyance, 
but now that it has got established in Mr. Riderhood, there appears 
to be a general desire that circumstances had admitted of its being 
developed in anybody else, rather than that gentleman. 

"However," says Miss Abbey, cheering them up, "you have 
done your duty like good and true men, and you had better come 
down and take something at the expense of the Porters," 

This they all do, leaving the daughter watching the father. To 
whom, in their absence. Bob Gliddery presents himself. 

" His gills look rum ; don't they 1 " says Bob, after inspecting 
the patient. 

Pleasant faintly nods. 

"His gills '11 look rummer when he wakes ; won't they?" says 
Bob. 

Pleasant hopes not. Why 1 

" When he finds himself here, you know," Bob explains. " 'Cause 
Miss Abbey forbid him the house and ordered him out of it. But 
what you may call the Fates ordered him into it again. Which is 
rumness ; ain't it ? " 

" He wouldn't have come here of his own accord," returns poor 
Pleasant, with an effort at a little pride. 

"No," retorts Bob. "Nor he wouldn't have been let in if he 
had." 

The short delusion is quite dispelled now. As plainly as she 
sees on her arm the old father, unimproved, Pleasant sees that 
everybody there will cut him when he recovers consciousness. " I'll 
take him away ever so soon as I can," thinks Pleasant with a sigh ; 
" he's best at home." 

Presently they all return, and wait for him to become conscious 
that they will all be glad to get rid of him. Some clothes are got 
together for him to wear, his own being saturated with water, and 
his present dress being composed of blankets. 

Becoming more and more uncomfortable, as though the prevalent 
dislike were finding him out somewhere in his sleep and expressing 
itself to him, the patient at last opens his eyes wide, and is assisted 
by his daughter to sit up in bed. 

"Well, Riderhood," says the doctor, "how do you feel?" 

He replies gruffly, " Nothing to boast on." Having, in fact, 
returned to life in an uncommonly sulky state. 

" I don't mean to preach ; but I hope," says the doctor, gravely 
shaking his head, " that this escape may have a good effect upon 
you, Riderhood." 

The patient's discontented growl of a reply is not intelligible ; 



430 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

his daughter, however, could interpret, if she would, that what he 
says is he " don't want no Poll Parroting." 

Mr. Riderhood next demands his shirt ; and draws it on over his 
head (with his daughter's help) exactly as if he had just had a 
Fight. 

" Warn't it a steamer ^ " he pauses to ask her. 

"Yes, father." 

" I'll have the law on her, bust her ! and make her pay for it." 

He then buttons his linen very moodily, twice or thrice stopping 
to examine his arms and hands, as if to see what punishment he 
has received in the Fight. He then doggedly demands his other 
garments, and slowly gets them on, with an appearance of great 
malevolence towards his late opponent and all the spectators. He 
has an impression that his nose is bleeding, and several times draws 
the back of his hand across it, and looks for the result, in a pugi- 
listic manner, greatly strengthening that incongruous resemblance. 

"Where's my fur cap?" he asks in a surly voice, when he has 
shuffled his clothes on. 

"In the river," somebody rejoins. 

" And warn't there no honest man to pick it up ? 0' course 
there was though, and to cut off with it arter wards. You are a 
rare lot, all on you." 

Thus, Mr. Riderhood : taking from the hands of his daughter, 
with special ill-will, a lent cap, and grumbling as he pulls it down 
over his ears. Then, getting on his unsteady legs, leaning heavily 
upon her, and gi'owling " Hold still, can't you ? What ! You must 
be a staggering next, must you ? " he takes liis departure out of the 
ring in which he has had that little turn-up with Death. 



CHAPTER IV. 

A HAPPY KETURN OF THE DAY. 

Mr. and Mrs. Wilfer had seen a full quarter of a hundred more 
anniversaries of their wedding-day than Mr. and Mrs. Lammle had 
seen of theirs, but they still celebrated the occasion in the bosom 
of their family. Not that these celebrations ever resulted in any- 
thing particularly agreeable, or that the family was ever disap- 
pointed by that circumstance on account of having looked forward 
to the return of the auspicious day with sanguine anticipations of 
enjoyment. It was kept morally, rather as a Fast than a Feast, 
enabling Mrs. Wilfer to hold a sombre darkling state, which exhib- 
ited that impressive woman in her choicest colours. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 431 

The noble lady's condition on these delightful occasions was one 
compounded of heroic endurance and heroic forgiveness. Lurid 
indications of the better marriages she might have made, shone 
athwart the awful gloom of her composure, and fitfully revealed 
the cherub as a little monster unaccountably favoured by Heaven, 
who had possessed himself of a blessing for which many of his 
superiors had sued and contended in vain. So firmly had this his 
position towards his treasure become established, that when the 
anniversary arrived, it always found him in an apologetic state. 
It is not impossible that his modest penitence may have even gone 
the length of sometimes severely reproving him for that he ever 
took the liberty of making so exalted a character his wife. 

As for the children of the union, their experience of these festi- 
vals had been sufficiently uncomfortable to lead them annually to 
wish, when out of their tenderest years, either that Ma had married 
somebody else instead of much-teased Pa, or that Pa had married 
somebody else instead of Ma. When there came to be but two 
sisters left at home, the daring mind of Bella on the next of these 
occasions scaled the height of wondering with droll vexation, " what 
on earth Pa ever could have seen in Ma, to induce him to make 
such a little fool of himself as to ask her to have him." 

The revolving year now bringing the day round in its orderly 
sequence, Bella arrived in the Bojffin chariot to assist at the celebra- 
tion. It was the family custom when the day recurred, to sacrifice 
a pair of fowls on the altar of Hymen ; and Bella had sent a note 
beforehand, to intimate that she would bring the votive off'ering 
with her. So, Bella and the fowls, by the united energies of two 
horses, two men, four wheels, and a plum-pudding carriage dog 
with as uncomfortable a collar on as if he had been George the 
Fourth, were deposited at the door of the parental dwelling. They 
were there received by Mrs. Wilfer in person, whose dignity on 
this, as on most special occasions, was heightened by a mysterious 
toothache. 

" I shall not require the carriage at night," said Bella. " I shall 
walk back." 

The male domestic of Mrs. Bofiin touched his hat, and in the 
act of departure had an awful glare bestowed upon him by Mrs. 
Wilfer, intended to carry deep into his audacious soul the assurance 
that, whatever his private suspicions might be, male domestics in 
livery were no rarity there. 

"Well, dear Ma," said Bella, "and how do you do?" 
" I am as well, Bella," replied Mrs. Wilfer, " as can be expected." 
" Dear me. Ma," said Bella, " you talk as if one was just born ! " 
" That's exactly what Ma has been doing," interposed Lavvy, 



432 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

over the maternal shoulder, " ever since we got up this morning. 
It's all very well to laugh, Bella, but anything more exasperating 
it is impossible to conceive." 

Mrs. Wilfer, with a look too full of majesty to be accompanied 
by any words, attended both her daughters to the kitchen, where 
the sacrifice was to be prepared. 

"Mr. Rokesmith," said she, resignedly, "has been so polite as 
to place liis sitting-room at our disposal to-day. You will there- 
fore, Bella, be entertained in the humble abode of your parents, so 
far in accordance with your i^resent style of living, that there will 
be a drawing-room for your reception as well as a dining-room. 
Your papa invited Mr. Rokesmith to partake of our lowly fare. 
In excusing himself on account of a particular engagement, he 
offered the use of his apartment." 

Bella happened to know that he had no engagement out of his 
own room at Mr. Boffin's, but she approved of his staying away. 
" We should only have put one another out of countenance," she 
thought, " and we do that quite often enough as it is." 

Yet she had sufficient curiosity about his room, to run up to it 
with the least possible delay, and make a close inspection of its 
contents. It was tastefully though economically furnished, and 
very neatly arranged. There were shelves and stands of books, 
English, French, and Italian ; and in a portfolio on the writing- 
table there were sheets upon sheets of memoranda and calculations 
in figures, evidently referring to the Boflin property. On that table 
also, carefully backed with canvas, varnished, mounted, and rolled 
like a map, was the placard descriptive of the murdered man who 
had come from afar to be her husband. She shrank from this 
ghostly surprise, and felt quite frightened as she rolled and tied it 
up again. Peeping about here and there, she came upon a print, 
a graceful head of a pretty woman, elegantly framed, hanging in 
the corner by the easy chair. " Oh, indeed, sir ! " said Bella, after 
stopping to ruminate before it. " Oh, indeed, sir ! I fancy I can 
guess whom you think that's like. But I'll tell you what it's 
much more like — your impudence ! " Having said which she 
decamped : not solely because she was ofi'ended, but because there 
was nothing else to look at. 

"Now, Ma," said Bella, reappearing in the kitchen with some 
remains of a blush, " you and Lavvy think magnificent me fit for 
nothing, but I intend to prove the contrary. I mean to be Cook 
to-day." 

" Hold ! " rejoined her majestic mother. " I cannot permit it. 
Cook, in that dress ! " 

"As for my dress. Ma," returned Bella, merrily searching in a 



OUR MUTUAL FKIEND. 433 

dresser-drawer, " I mean to apron it and towel it all over the front ; 
and as to permission, I mean to do without." 

''You cook?" said Mrs. Wilfer. ''You who never cooked 
when you were at homer' 

"Yes, Ma," returned Bella ; "that is precisely the state of the 
case." 

She girded herself with a white apron, and busily with knots 
and pins contrived a bib to it, coming close and tight under 
her chin, as if it had caught her round the neck to kiss her. 
Over this bib her dimples looked delightful, and under it her 
pretty figure not less so. "Now, Ma," said Bella, pushing back 
her hair from her temples with both hands, " what's first ? " 

"First," returned Mrs. Wilfer solemnly, "if you persist in 
what I cannot but regard as conduct utterly incompatible with the 
equipage in which you arrived — " 

(" Which I do. Ma.") 

" First, then, you put the fowls down to the fire." 

"To — be — sure ! " cried Bella ; " and flour them, and twirl 
them round, and there they go ! " sending them spinning at a 
great rate. "What's next. Ma?" 

" Next," said Mrs. Wilfer with a wave of her gloves, expressive 
of abdication under protest from the culinary throne, "I would 
recommend examination of the bacon in the saucepan on the fire, 
and also of the potatoes by the application of a fork. Preparation 
of the greens will further become necessary if you persist in this 
unseemly demeanour." 

"As of course I do. Ma." 

Persisting, Bella gave her attention to one thing and forgot 
the other, and gave her attention to the other and forgot the 
third, and remembering the third was distracted by the fourth, 
and made amends whenever she went wrong by giving the un- 
fortunate fowls an extra spin, which made their chance of ever get- 
ting cooked exceedingly doubtful. But it was pleasant cookery too. 
Meanwhile Miss Lavinia, oscillating between the kitchen and 
the opposite room, prepared the dining-table in the latter chamber. 
This office she (always doing her household spiriting with un- 
willingness) performed in a startling series of whisks and bumps ; 
laying the table-cloth as if she were raising the wind, putting 
down the glasses and salt-cellars as if she were knocking at the 
door, and clashing the knives and forks in a skirmishing manner 
suggestive of hand-to-hand conflict. 

"Look at Ma," whispered Lavinia to Bella when this was done, 
and they stood over the roasting fowls. " If one was the most 
dutiful child in existence (of course on the whole one hopes one 

2f 



434 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

is), isn't she enough to make one want to poke her with something 
wooden, sitting there bolt ui^right in the corner 1 " 

" Only suppose," returned Bella, " that poor Pa was to sit 
bolt upright in another corner." 

"My dear, he couldn't do it," said Lavvy. ''Pa would loll 
directly. But indeed I do not believe there ever was any human 
creature who could keep so bolt upright as Ma, or put such an 
amount of aggravation into one back ! What's the matter. Ma ? 
Ain't you well, Ma?" 

"Doubtless I am very well," returned Mrs. Wilfer, turning 
her eyes upon her youngest born, with scornful fortitude. " What 
should be the matter with Me ? " 

" You don't seem very brisk, Ma," retorted Lavvy the bold. 

"Brisk?" repeated her parent. "Brisk? Whence the low 
expression, Lavinia? If I am uncomplaining, if I am silently 
contented with my lot, let that suffice for my family." 

"Well, Ma," returned Lavvy, "since you will force it out of 
me, I must respectfully take leave to say that your family are 
no doubt under the greatest obligations to you for having an 
annual toothache on your wedding-day, and that it's very dis- 
interested in you, and an immense blessing to them. Still, on 
the whole, it is possible to be too boastful even of that boon." 

"You incarnation of sauciness," said Mrs. Wilfer, "do you 
speak like that to me? On this day of all days in the year? 
Pray do you know what would have become of you, if I 
had not bestowed my hand upon K. W., your father, on this 
day?" 

" No, Ma," replied Lavvy, " I really do not ; and, with the 
greatest respect for your abilities and information, I very much 
doubt if you do either." 

Whether or no the sharp vigour of this sally on a weak point 
of Mrs. Wilfer's entrenchments might have routed that heroine 
for the time, is rendered uncertain by the arrival of a flag 
of truce in the person of Mr. George Sampson : bidden to the 
feast as a friend of the family, whose affections were now under- 
stood to be in course of transference from Bella to Lavinia, and 
whom Lavinia kept — possibly in remembrance of his bad taste 
in having overlooked her in the first instance — under a course 
of stinging discipline. 

" I congratulate you, Mrs. Wilfer," said Mr. George Sampson, 
who had meditated this neat address while coming along, " on the 
day." Mrs. Wilfer thanked him with a magnanimous sigh, 
and again became an unresisting prey to that inscrutable tooth- 
ache. 



OUE MUTUAL FRIEND. 435 

"I am surprised," said Mr. Sampson feebly, "that Miss Bella 
condescends to cook." 

Here Miss Lavinia descended on the ill-starred young gentleman 
with a crushing supposition that at all events it was no business 
of his. This disposed of Mr. Sampson in a melancholy retire- 
ment of spirit, until the cherub arrived, whose amazement at 
the lovely woman's occupation was great. 

However, she persisted in dishing the dinner as well as cook- 
ing it, and then sat down, bibless and apronless, to partake of 
it as an illustrious guest : Mrs. Wilfer first responding to her 
husband's cheerful " For what we are about to receive — - " with 
a sepulchral Amen, calculated to cast a damp upon the stoutest 
appetite. 

" But what," said Bella, as she watched the carving of the fowls, 
" makes them pink inside, I wonder, Pa ! Is it the breed ? " 

"No, I don't think it's the breed, my dear," returned Pa. 
"I rather think it is because they are not done." 

" They ought to be," said Bella. 

"Yes, I'm aware they ought to be, my dear," rejoined her 
father, " but they — ain't." 

So, the gridiron was put in requisition, and the good-tempered 
cherub, who was often as un-cherubically employed in his own 
family as if he had been in the employment of some of the 
Old Masters, undertook to grill the fowls. Indeed, except in 
respect of staring about him (a branch of the public service to 
which the pictorial cherub is much addicted), this domestic cherub 
discharged as many odd functions as his prototype; with the 
dijffereuce, say, that he performed with a blacking-brush on 
the family's boots, instead of performing on enormous wind 
instraments and double-basses, and that he conducted 'himself 
with cheerful alacrity to much useful jDurpose, instead of fore- 
shortening himself in the air with the vaguest intentions. 

Bella helped him with his supplemental cookery, and made 
him very happy, but put him in mortal terror too by asking him 
when they sat down at table again, how he supposed they cooked 
fowls at the Greenwich dinners, and whether he believed they 
really were such pleasant dinners as people said? His secret 
winks and nods of remonstrance, in reply, made the mischievous 
Bella laugh until she choked, and then Lavinia was obliged to 
slap her on the back, and then she laughed the more. 

But her mother was a fine corrective at the other end of the 
table ; to whom her father, in the innocence of his good fellow- 
ship, at intervals appealed with : " My dear, I am afraid you are 
not enjoying yourself?" 



436 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Why so, R. W.?" she would sonorously reply. 

"Because, my dear, you seem a little out of sorts." 

" Not at all," would be the rejoinder, in exactly the same tone. 

" Would you take a merry- thought, my dear 1 " 

" Thank you. I will take whatever you please, R. W." 

" Well, but my dear, do you like it 1 " 

"I like it as well as I like anything, R. W." The stately 
woman would then, with a meritorious appearance of devoting her- 
self to the general good, pursue her dinner as if she were feeding 
somebody else on high public grounds. 

Bella had brought dessert and two bottles of wine, thus shedding 
unprecedented splendour on the occasion. Mrs. Wilfer did the 
honours of the first glass by proclaiming : " R. W., I drink to you." 

" Thank you, my dear. And I to you." 

" Pa and Ma ! " said Bella. 

"Permit me," Mrs. Wilfer interposed, with, outstretched glove. 
" No. I think not. I drank to your Pa. If, however, you insist 
on including me, I can in gratitude offer no objection." 

"Why, Lor, Ma," interposed Lawy the bold, "isn't it the day 
that made you and Pa one and the same 1 I have no patience." 

" By whatever other circumstances the day may be marked, it 
is not the day, Lavinia, on which I will allow a child of mine to 
pounce upon me. I beg — nay, command ! — that you will not 
pounce. R. W., it is appropriate to recall that it is for you to 
command and for me to obey. It is your house, and you are 
master at your own table. Both our healths ! " Drinking the 
toast with tremendous stiffness. 

" I really am a little afraid, my dear," hinted the cherub meekly, 
"that you are not enjoying yourself?" 

"On the contrary," returned Mrs. Wilfer, "quite so. Why 
should I not ? " 

"I thought, my dear, that perhaps your face might " 

" My face might be a martyrdom, but what would that import, 
or who should know it if I smiled ? " 

And she did smile ; manifestly freezing the blood of Mr. George 
Sampson by so doing. For tliat young gentleman, catching her 
smiling eye, was so very much appalled by its expression as to cast 
about in his thoughts concerning what he had done to bring it 
down upon himself. 

"The mind naturally falls," said Mrs. Wilfer, "shall I say into 
a reverie, or shall I say into a retrospect? on a day like this." 

Lavvy, sitting with defiantly folded arms, replied (but not 
audibly), " For goodness' sake say whichever of the two you like 
best. Ma, and get it over." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 437 

" The mind," pursued Mrs. Wilfer in an oratorical manner, 
" naturally reverts to Papa and Mamma — I here allude to my 
parents — at a period before the earliest dawn of this day. I was 
considered tall ; perhaps I was. Papa and Mamma were unques- 
tionably tall. I have rarely seen a finer woman than my mother ; 
never than my father." 

The irrepressible Lawy remarked aloud, " Whatever grandpapa 
was, he wasn't a female." 

"Your grandpapa," retorted Mrs. Wilfer, with an awful look, 
and in an awful tone, " was what I describe him to have been, and 
would have struck any of his grandchildren to the earth who pre- 
sumed to question it. It was one of mamma's cherished hopes 
that I should become united to a tall member of society. It may 
have been a weakness, but if so, it was equally the weakness, I be- 
lieve, of King Frederick of Prussia." These remarks being offered 
to Mr. George Sampson, who had not the courage to come out for 
single combat, but lurked with his chest under the table and his eyes 
cast down, Mrs. Wilfer proceeded, in a voice of increasing sternness 
and impressiveness, until she should force that skulker to give himself 
up. " Mamma would appear to have had an indefinable foreboding 
of what afterwards happened, for she would frequently urge upon 
me, ' Not a little man. Promise me, my child, not a little man. 
Never, never, never marry a little man ! ' Papa also would re- 
mark to me (he possessed extraordinary humour), ' that a family of 
whales must not ally themselves with sprats.' His company was 
eagerly sought, as may be supposed, by the wits of the day, and 
our house was their continual resort. I have known as many as 
three copper-plate engravers exchanging the most exquisite sallies 
and retorts there, at one time." (Here Mr. Sampson delivered 
himself captive, and said, with an uneasy movement on his chair, 
that three was a large number, and it must have been highly 
entertaining.) "Among the most prominent members of that 
distinguished circle, was a gentleman measuring six feet four in 
height. He was not an engraver." (Here Mr. Sampson said, 
with no reason whatever. Of course not.) " This gentleman was 
so obliging as to honour me with attentions which I could not 
fail to understand." (Here Mr. Sampson murmured that when it 
came to that, you could always tell.) " I immediately announced 
to both my parents that those attentions were misplaced, and that 
I could not favour his suit. They inquired was he too tall 1 I 
replied it was not the stature, but the intellect was too lofty. At 
our house, I said, the tone was too brilliant, the pressure was too 
high, to be maintained by me, a mere woman, in every-day domestic 
life. I well remember mamma's clasping her hands, and exclaim- 



438 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

ing, ' This will end in a little man ! ' " (Here Mr. Sampson glanced 
at his host and shook his head with despondency.) " She after- 
wards went so far as to predict that it would end in a little man 
whose mind would be below the average, but that was in what I 
may denominate a paroxysm of maternal disappointment. Within 
a month," said Mrs. Wilfer, deepening her voice, as if she were 
relating a termble ghost story, " within a month, I first saw R. W., 
my husband. Within a year I married him. It is natural for 
the mind to recall these dark coincidences on the present day." 

Mr. Sampson, at length released from the custody of Mrs. 
Wilfer's eye, now drew a long breath, and made the original and strik- 
ing remark, that there was no accounting for these sort of presenti- 
ments. R. W. scratched his head and looked apologetically all 
round the table until he came to his wife, when observing her as it 
were shrouded in a more sombre veil than before, he once more 
hinted, " My dear, I am really afraid you are not altogether en- 
joying yourself?" To which she once more replied, " On the con- 
trary, R. W. Quite so." 

The wretched Mr. Sampson's position at this agreeable enter- 
tainment was truly pitiable. For, not only was he exposed de- 
fenceless to the harangues of Mrs. Wilfer, but he received the 
utmost contumely at the hands of Lavinia ; who, partly to show 
Bella that she (Lavinia) could do what she liked with him, and 
partly to pay him off for still obviously admiring Bella's beauty, 
led him the life of a dog. Illuminated on the one hand by the 
stately graces of Mrs. Wilfer's oratory, and shadowed on the other 
by the checks and frowns of the young lady to whom he had devoted 
himself in his destitution, the sufferings of this young gentleman 
were distressing to witness. If his mind for the moment reeled 
under them, it may be urged, in extenuation of its weakness, that 
it was constitutionally a knock-knee'd mind, and never very strong 
upon its legs. 

The rosy hours were thus beguiled until it was time for Bella to 
have Pa's escort back. The dimples duly tied up in the bonnet- 
strings and the leave-taking done, they got out into the air, and 
the cherub drew a long breath as if he found it refreshing. 

" Well, dear Pa," said Bella, " the anniversary may be considered 
over." 

" Yes, my dear," returned the chemb, " there's another of 'em 
gone." 

Bella drew his arm closer through hers as they walked along, 
and gave it a number of consolatory pats. " Thank you, my 
dear," he said, as if she had spoken, " I am all right, my dear. 
Well, and how do you get on, Bella ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 439 

" I am not at all improved, Pa." 

"Ain't you really though?" 

" No, Pa. On the contrary, I am worse." 

" Lor ! " said the cherub. 

" I am worse, Pa. I make so many calculations how much a 
year I must have when I marry, and what is the least I can 
manage to do with, that I am beginning to get wrinkles over my 
nose. Did you notice any wrinkles over my nose this evening, Pa ? " 

Pa laughing at this, Bella gave him two or three shakes. 

" You won't laugh, sir, when you see your lovely woman turn- 
ing haggard. You had better be prepared in time, I can tell you. 
I shall not be able to keep my greediness for money out of my 
eyes long, and when you see it there you'll be sorry, and serve you 
right for not being warned in time. Now, sir, we entered into a 
bond of confidence. Have you anything to impart ? " 

" I thought it was you who was to impart, my love." 

"Oh ! did you indeed, sir? Then why didn't you ask me, the 
moment we came out ? The confidences of lovely women are not to 
be slighted. However, I forgive you this once, and look here, Pa ; 
that's " — Bella laid the little forefinger of her right glove on her 
lip, and then laid it on her father's lip — " that's a kiss for you. 
And now I am going seriously to tell you — let me see how many 
— four secrets. Mind ! Serious, grave, weighty secrets. Strictly 
between ourselves." 

"Number one, my dear?" said her father, settling her arm 
comfortably and confidentially. 

" Number one," said Bella, " will electrify you. Pa. Who do 
you think has" — she was confused here in spite of her merry 
way of beginning — " has made an offer to me ? " 

Pa looked in her face, and looked at the ground, and looked in 
her face again, and declared he could never guess. 

" Mr. Rokesmith." 

" You don't tell me so, my dear ! " 

" Mis — ter Roke — smith. Pa," said Bella, separating the sylla- 
bles for emphasis. " What do you say to that ? " 

Pa answered quietly with the counter-question, " What did you 
say to that, my love ? " 

"I said No," returned Bella sharply. " Of course." 

"Yes. Of course," said her father, meditating. 

" And I told him why I thought it a betrayal of trust on his 
part, and an affront to me," said Bella. 

"Yes. To be sure. I am astonished indeed. I wonder he 
committed himself without seeing more of his way first. Now I 
think of it, I suspect he always has admired you though, my dear." 



440 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" A hackney coachman may admire me," remarked Bella, with a 
touch of her mother's loftiness. 

"It's highly jDrobable, my love. Number two, my dear?" 

" Number two, Pa, is much to the same jDuriDose, though not so 
preposterous. Mr. Lightwood would propose to me, if I would 
let him." 

" Then I understand, my dear,, that you don't intend to let him ?" 

Bella again saying, with her former emphasis, " Why, of course 
not ! " her father felt himself bound to echo, " Of course not." 

"I don't care for him," said Bella. 

" That's enough," her father interposed. 

"No, Pa, it's not enough," rejoined Bella, giving him another 
shake or two. " Haven't I told you what a mercenary little 
wretch I am 1 It only becomes enough when he has no money, 
and no clients, and no expectations, and no anything but debts." 

" Hah ! " said the cherub, a little depressed. " Number three, 
my dear 1 " 

"Number three. Pa, is a better thing. A generous thing, a 
noble thing, a delightful thing. Mrs. Boffin has herself told me, 
as a secret, with her own kind lips — and truer lips never opened 
or closed in this life, I am sure — that they wish to see me well 
married ; and that when I marry with their consent they will por- 
tion me most handsomely." Here the grateful girl burst out cry- 
ing very heartily. 

"Don't cry, my darling," said her father, with his hand to his 
eyes ; " it's excusable in me to be a little overcome when I find 
that my dear favourite child is, after all disappointments, to be so 
provided for and so raised in the world ; but don't you cry, don't 
you cry. I am very thankful. I congratulate you with all my 
heart, my dear." The good soft little fellow, drying his eyes here, 
Bella put her arms round his neck and tenderly kissed him on the 
highroad, passionately telling him he was the best of fathers and 
the best of friends, and that on her wedding-morning she would 
go down on her knees to him and beg his pardon for having ever 
teased him or seemed insensible to the worth of such a patient, 
sympathetic, genial, fresh young heart. At every one of her 
adjectives she redoubled her kisses, and finally kissed his hat ofi", 
and tlien laughed immoderately when the wind took it and he ran 
after it. 

When he had recovered his hat and his breath, and they were 
going on again once more, said her father then: "Number four, 
my dear ? " 

Bella's countenance fell in the midst of her mirth. "After 
all, perhaps I had better put off number four, Pa. Let me try 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 441 

once more, if for never so short a time, to hope that it may not 
really be so." 

The change in her strengthened the cherub's interest in number 
four, and he said quietly : " May not be so, my dear ? May not 
be how, my dear ? " 

Bella looked at him pensively, and shook her head. 

" And yet I know right well it is so, Pa. I know it only too 
well." 

"My love," returned her father, "you make me quite uncomfort- 
able. Have you said No to anybody else, my dear ? " 

" No, Pa." 

"Yes to anybody?" he suggested, lifting up his eyebrows. 

" No, Pa." 

" Is there anybody else who would take his chance between Yes 
and No, if you would let him, my dear 1 " 

"Not that I know of. Pa." 

" There can't be somebody who won't take his chance when you 
want him to ? " said the cherub, as a last resource. 

" Why, of course not. Pa," said Bella, giving him another shake 
or two. 

" No, of course not," he assented. " Bella, my dear, I am afraid 
I must either have no sleep to-night, or I must press for number 
four." 

" Oh, Pa, there is no good in number four ! I am so sorry for 
it, I am so unwilling to believe it, I have tried so earnestly not to 
see it, that it is very hard to tell, even to you. But Mr. Boffin is 
being spoiled by prosperity, and is changing every day." 

" My dear Bella, I hope and trust not." 

"I have hoped and trusted not too. Pa; but every day he 
changes for the worse and for the worse. Not to me — he is 
always much the same to me — but to others about him. Before 
my eyes he grows suspicious, capricious, hard, tyrannical, unjust. 
If ever a good man were ruined by good fortune, it is my benefac- 
tor. And yet. Pa, think how terrible the fascination of money is ! 
I see this, and hate this, and dread this, and don't know but that 
money might make a much worse change in me. And yet I have 
money always in my thoughts and my desires ; and the whole life 
I place before myself is money, money, money, and what money 
can make of life ! " 



442 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO BAD COMPANY. 

Were Bella Wilfer's bright and ready little wits at fault, or 
was the Golden Dustman passing through the furnace of proof and 
coming out dross 1 111 news travels fast. We shall know full soon. 

On that very night of her return from the Happy Keturn, some- 
thing chanced which Bella closely followed with her eyes and ears. 
There was an apartment at the side of the Boffin mansion, known 
as Mr. Boffin's room. Far less grand than the rest of the house, 
it was far more comfortable, being pervaded by a certain air of 
homely snugness, which upholstering despotism had banished to 
that spot when it inexorably set its face against Mr. Boffin's 
appeals for mercy in behalf of any other chamber. Thus, although 
a room of modest situation — for its windows gave on Silas Wegg's 
old corner — and of no pretensions to velvet, satin, or gilding, it 
had got itself established in a domestic position analogous to that 
of an easy dressing-gown or pair of slippers ; and whenever the 
family wanted to enjoy a particularly pleasant fireside evening, they 
enjoyed it, as an institution that must be, in Mr. Boffin's room. 

Mr. and Mrs. Boffin were reported sitting in this room, when 
Bella got back. Entering it, she found the Secretary there too ; 
in official attendance it would appear, for he was standing with 
some papers in his hand by a table with shaded candles on it, at 
which Mr. Boffin was seated thrown back in his easy chair. 

"You are busy, sir," said Bella, hesitating at the door. 

" Not at all, my dear, not at all. You're one of ourselves. We 
never make company of you. Come in, come in. Here's the old 
lady in her usual place." 

Mrs. Boffin adding her nod and a smile of welcome to Mr. 
Boffin's words, Bella took her book to a chair in the fireside 
corner, by Mrs. Boffin's work-table. Mr. Boffin's station was on 
the opposite side. 

" Now, Rokesmith," said the Golden Dustman, so sharply rap- 
ping the table to bespeak his attention as Bella turned the leaves 
of her book, that she started ; " where were we ? " 

"You were saying, sir," returned the Secretary, with an air of 
some reluctance and a glance towards those others who were present, 
" tliat you considered the time had come for fixing my salary." 

" Don't be above calling it wages, man," said Mr. Boffin, testily. 
" What the deuce ! I never talked of m7/ salaiy when I was in 
service." 

"My wages," said the Secretary, correcting himself 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 443 

" Rokesmith, you are not proud, I hope ? " observed Mr. Bofl&n, 
eyeing- him askance. 

"I hope not, sir." 

"Because I never was, when I was poor," said Mr. Boffin. 
" Poverty and pride don't go at all well together. Mind that. 
How can they go well together? Why it stands to reason. A 
man being poor, has nothing to be proud of. It's nonsense." 

With a slight inclination of his head, and a look of some surprise, 
the Secretary seemed to assent by forming the syllables of the word 
" nonsense " on his lips. 

"Now, concerning these same wages," said Mr. Boffin. "Sit 
down." 

The Secretary sat down. 

" Why didn't you sit down before ? " asked Mr. Boffin, distrust- 
fully. " I hope that wasn't pride ? But about these wages. Now, 
I've gone into the matter, and I say two hundred a year. What 
do you think of it 1 Do you think it's enough ? " 

"Thank you. It is a fair proposal." 

"I don't say, you know," Mr. Boffin stipulated, "but what it 
may be more than enough. And I'll tell you why, Rokesmith. A 
man of property, like me, is bound to consider the market-price. 
At first I didn't enter into that as much as I might have done ; 
but I've got acquainted with other men of property since, and I've 
got acquainted with the duties of property. I mustn't go putting 
the market-price up, because money may happen not to be an object 
with me. A sheep is worth so much in the market, and I ought 
to give it and no more. A secretary is worth so much in the 
market, and I ought to give it and no more. However, I don't 
mind stretching a point with you." 

"Mr. Boffin, you are very good," replied the Secretary, with an 
effort. 

"Then we put the figure," said Mr. Boffin, "at two hundred a 
year. Then the figure's disposed of. Now, there must be no mis- 
understanding regarding what I buy for two hundred a year. If 
I pay for a sheep, I buy it out and out. Similarly, if I pay for a 
secretary, I buy hiin out and out." 

" In other words, you purchase my whole time ? " 

"Certainly I do. Look here," said Mr. Boffin, "it ain't that 
I want to occupy your whole time ; you can take up a book for a 
minute or two when you've nothing better to do, though I think 
you'll a'most always find something useful to do. But I want to 
keep you in attendance. It's convenient to have you at all times 
ready on the premises. Therefore, betwixt your breakfast and 
your supper, — on the premises I expect to find you." 



444 OUK MUTUAL FRIEND. 

The Secretary bowed. 

*' In bygone clays, when I was in service myself," said Mr. Bofl&n, 
"I couldn't go cutting about at my will and i)leasure, and you 
won't expect to go cutting about at your will and pleasure. You've 
rather got into a habit of that, lately ; but perhaps it was for 
want of a right specification betwixt us. Now, let there be a right 
specification betwixt us, and let it be this. If you want leave, ask 
for it." 

Again the Secretary bowed. His manner was uneasy and aston- 
ished, and showed a sense of humiliation. 

"I'll have a bell," said Mr. Boffin, "hung from this room to 
yours, and when I want you I'll touch it. I don't call to mind 
that I have anything more to say at the present moment." 

The Secretary rose, gathered up his papers, and withdrew. 
Bella's eyes followed him to the door, lighted on Mr. Boffin com- 
placently thrown back in his easy chair, and drooped over her 
book. 

" I have let that chap, that young man of mine," said Mr. Boffin, 
taking a trot up and down the room, "get above his work. It 
won't do. I must have him down a peg. A man of property 
owes a duty to other men of property, and must look sharp after 
his inferiors." 

Bella felt that Mrs. Boffin was not comfortable, and that the 
eyes of that good creature sought to discover from her face what 
attention she had given to this discourse, and what impression it 
had made upon her. For which reason Bella's eyes drooped more 
engrossedly over her book, and she turned the page with an air of 
profound absorption in it. 

"Noddy," said Mrs. Boffin, after thoughtfully pausing in her 
work. 

" My dear," returned the Golden Dustman, stopping short in his 
trot. 

" Excuse my putting it to you. Noddy, but now really ! Haven't 
you been a little strict with Mr. Rokesmith to-night ? Haven't you 
been a little — just a little little — not quite like your old self?" 

" Why, old woman, I hope so," returned Mr. Boffin, cheerfully, if 
not boastfully. 

"Hope so, deary?" 

" Our old selves wouldn't do here, old lady. Haven't you found 
that out yet ? Our old selves would be fit for nothing here but to 
be robbed and imposed upon. Our old selves weren't people of 
fortune ; our new selves are ; it's a great difference." 

" Ah ! " said Mrs. Boffin, pausing in her work again, softly to 
draw a long breath and to look at the fire. " A great difference." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 445 

"And we must be up to the difference," pursued her husband; 
"we must be equal to the change; that's what we must be. 
We've got to hold our own now, against everybody (for everybody's 
hand is stretched out to be dipped into our pockets), and we have 
got to recollect that money makes money, as well as makes every- 
thing else." 

"Mentioning recollecting," said Mrs. Boffin, with her work aban- 
doned, her eyes upon the fire, and her chin upon her hand, "do 
you recollect. Noddy, how you said to Mr. Rokesmith when he first 
came to see us at the Bower, and you engaged him — how you said 
to him that if it had pleased Heaven to send John Harmon to his 
fortune safe, we could have been content with the one Mound 
which was our legacy, and should never have wanted the rest ? " 

" Ay, I remember, old lady. But we hadn't tried what it was 
to have the rest then. Our new shoes had come home, but we 
hadn't put 'em on. We're wearing 'em now, we're wearing 'em, and 
must step out accordingly." 

Mrs. Boffin took up her work again, and plied her needle in 
silence. 

"As to Rokesmith, that young man of mine," said Mr. Boffin, 
dropping his voice and glancing towards the door with an apprehen- 
sion of being overheard by some eavesdropper there, " it's the same 
with him as with the footmen. I have found out that you must 
either scrunch them, or let them scrunch you. If you ain't impe- 
rious with 'em, they won't believe in your being any better than 
themselves, if as good, after the stories (lies mostly) that they 
have heard of your beginnings. There's nothing betwixt stiffen- 
ing yourself up, and throwing yourself away : take my word for 
that, old lady." 

Bella ventured for a moment to look stealthily towards him 
under her eyelashes, and she saw a dark cloud of suspicion, cov- 
etousness, and conceit, overshadowing the once open face. 

" Hows'ever," said he, "this isn't entertaining to Miss Bella. 
Is it, Bella?" 

A deceiving Bella she was, to look at him with that pensively 
abstracted air, as if her mind were full of her book, and she had 
not heard a single word ! 

" Hah ! Better employed than to attend to it," said Mr. Boffin. 
" That's right, that's right. Especially as you have no call to be 
told how to value yourself, my dear." 

Colouring a little under this compliment, Bella returned, " I 
hope, sir, you don't think me vain 1 " 

" Not a bit, my dear," said Mr. Boffin. " But I think it's very 
creditable in you, at your age, to be so well up with the pace of 



446 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

the world, and to know what to go in for. You are right. Go in 
for money, my love. Money's the article. You'll make money of 
your good looks, and of the money Mrs. Boffin and me will have 
the pleasure of settling upon you, and you'll live and die rich. 
That's the state to Hve and die in ! " said Mr. Boffin, in an unctu- 
ous manner. " R — r — rich ! " 

There was an expression of distress in Mrs. Boffin's face, as, 
after watching her husband's, she turned to their adopted girl, and 
said : " Don't mind him, Bella, my dear." 

" Eh ? " cried Mr. Boffin. " What ! Not mind him ? " 

" I don't mean that," said Mrs. Boffin, with a worried look, " but 
I mean, don't believe him to be anything but good and generous, 
Bella, because he is the best of men. No, I must say that much. 
Noddy. You are always the best of men." 

She made the declaration as if he were objecting to it : which 
assuredly he was not in any way. 

" And as to you, my dear Bella," said Mrs. Boffin, still with 
that distressed expression, "he is so much attached to you, what- 
ever he says, that your own father has not a truer interest in you 
and can hardly like you better than he does." 

" Says too ! " cried Mr. Boffin. " Whatever he says ! Why, I 
say so, openly. Give me a kiss, my dear child, in saying Good 
Night, and let me confirm what my old lady tells you. I am very 
fond of you, my dear, and I am entirely of your mind, and you 
and I will take care that you shall be rich. These good looks 
of yours (which you have some right to be vain of, my dear, 
though you are not, you know) are worth money, and you shall 
make money of 'em. The money you will have, will be worth 
money, and you shall make money of that too. There's a golden 
ball at your feet. Good Night, my dear." 

Somehow, Bella was not so well pleased with this assurance and 
this prospect as she might have been. Somehow, when she put her 
arms round Mrs. Boffin's neck and said Good Night, she derived a 
sense of unworthiness from the still anxious face of that good 
woman and her obvious wish to excuse her husband. "Why, what 
need to excuse him ? " thought Bella, sitting down in her own room. 
" What he said was very sensible, I am sure, and very true, I am 
sure. It is only what I often say to myself. Don't I like it then 1 
No, I don't like it, and, though he is my liberal benefactor, I dis- 
parage him for it. Then pray," said Bella, sternly putting the 
question to herself in the looking-glass as usual, "what do you 
mean by this, you inconsistent little Beast 1 " 

The looking-glass preserving a discreet ministerial silence when 
thus called upon for explanation, Bella went to bed with a weari- 




BIBLIOMANIA OF THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN. 



448 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

ness upon her spirit which was more than the weariness of want of 
sleep. And again in the morning, she looked for the cloud, and for 
the deepening of the cloud, upon the Golden Dustman's face. 

She had begun by this time to be his frequent companion in his 
morning strolls about the streets, and it was at this time that he made 
her a party to his engaging in a curious pursuit. Having been 
hard at work in one dull enclosure all his life, he had a child's 
delight in looking at shops. It had been one of the first novelties 
and pleasures of his freedom, and was equally the delight of his 
wife. For many years their only walks in London had been taken 
on Sundays when the shops were shut ; and when every day in the 
week became their holiday, they derived an enjoyment from the 
variety and fancy and beauty of the display in the windows, which 
seemed incapable of exhaustion. As if the principal streets were a 
great Theatre and the play were childishly new to them, Mr. and 
Mrs. Boffin, from the beginning of Bella's intimacy in their house, 
had been constantly in the front row, charmed with all they saw, and 
applauding vigorously. But now Mr. Boffin's interest began to 
centre in book-shops ; and more than that — for that of itself 
would not have been much — in one exceptional kind of book. 

" Look in here, my dear," Mr. Boffin would say, checking Bella's 
arm at a bookseller's window ; " you can read at sight, and your 
eyes are as sharp as they're bright. Now, look well about you, my 
dear, and tell me if you see any book about a Miser." 

If Bella saw such a book, Mr. Boffin would instantly dart in and 
buy it. And still, if they had not found it, they would seek out 
another book-shop, and Mr. Boffin would say, " Now, look well all 
round, my dear, for a Life of a Miser, or any book of that sort ; 
any Lives of odd characters who may have been Misers." 

Bella, thus directed, would examine the window with the great- 
est attention, while Mr. Boffin would examine her face. The mo- 
ment she pointed out any book as being entitled Lives of eccentric 
personages. Anecdotes of strange characters. Records of remarkable 
individuals, or anything to that purpose, Mr. Boffin's countenance 
would light up, and he would instantly dart in and buy it. Size, 
price, quality, were of no account. Any book that seemed to 
promise a chance of miserly biography, Mr. Boffin purchased with- 
out a moment's delay and carried home. Happening to be informed 
by a bookseller that a portion of the Annual Register was devoted 
to " Characters," Mr. Boffin at once bought a whole set of that 
ingenious compilation, and began to carry it home piecemeal, con- 
fiding a volume to Bella, and bearing three himself. The comple- 
tion of this labour occupied them about a fortnight. When the 
task was done, Mr. Boffin, with his appetite for Misers whetted 
instead of satiated, began to look out again. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 449 

It very soon became unnecessary to tell Bella what to look for, 
and an understanding was established between her and Mr. Boffin 
that she was always to look for Lives of Misers. Morning after 
morning they roamed about the town together, pursuing this singu- 
lar research. Miserly literature not being abundant, the proportion 
of failures to successes may have been as a hundred to one; still 
Mr. Boffin, never wearied, remained as avaricious for misers as he 
had been at the first onset. It was curious that Bella never saw 
the books about the house, nor did she ever hear from Mr. Boffin 
one word of reference to their contents. He seemed to save up 
his Misers as they had saved up their money. As they had been 
greedy for it, and secret about it, and had hidden it, so he was 
greedy for them, and secret about them, and hid them. But beyond 
all doubt it was to be noticed, and was by Bella very clearly noticed, 
that, as he pursued the acquisition of those dismal records v/ith the 
ardour of Don Quixote for his books of chivalry, he began to spend 
his money with a more sparing hand. And often when he came 
out of a shop with some new account of one of those wretched luna- 
tics, she would almost shrink from the sly dry chuckle with which 
he would take her arm again and trot away. It did not appear 
that Mrs. Boffin knew of this taste. He made no allusion to it, 
except in the morning walks when he and Bella were always alone ; 
and Bella, partly under the impression that he took her into his 
confidence by implication, and partly in remembrance of Mrs. 
Boffin's anxious face that night, held the same reserve. 

While these occurrences were in progress, Mrs. Lammle made 
the disco veiy that Bella had a fascinating influence over her. The 
Lammles, originally presented by the dear Veneerings, visited the 
Boffins on all grand occasions, and Mrs. Lammle had not previously- 
found this out ; but now the knowledge came upon her all at once. 
It was a most extraordinary thing (she said to Mrs. Boffin) ; she 
was foolishly susceptible of the power of beauty, but it wasn't alto- 
gether that ; she never had been able to resist a natural grace of 
manner, but it wasn't altogether that ; it was more than that, and 
there was no name for the indescribable extent and degree to which 
she was captivated by this charming girl. 

This charming girl having the words repeated to her by Mrs. 
Boffin (who was proud of her being admired, and would have done 
anything to give her pleasure), naturally recognised in Mrs. Lammle 
a woman of penetration and taste. Responding to the sentiments, 
by being very gracious to Mrs. Lammle, she gave that lady the 
means of so improving her opportunity, as that the captivation 
became reciprocal, though always wearing an appearance of greater 
sobriety on Bella's part than on the enthusiastic Sophronia's. 

2q 



450 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Howbeit, they were so much together that, for a time, the Boffin 
chariot held Mrs. Lammle oftener than Mrs. Boffin : a preference 
of which the latter worthy soul was not in the least jealous, placidly 
remarking, " Mrs. Lammle is a younger companion for her than I 
am, and Lor ! she's more fashionable." 

But between Bella Wilfer and Georgiana Podsnap there was this 
one difference, among many others, that Bella was in no danger 
of being captivated by Alfred. She distrusted and disliked him. 
Indeed, her perception was so quick, and her observation so sharp, 
that after all she mistrusted his wife too, though with her giddy 
vanity and wilfulness she squeezed the mistrust away into a corner 
of her mind, and blocked it up there. 

Mrs. Lammle took the friendliest interest in Bella's making a 
good match. Mrs. Lammle said, in a sportive way, she really must 
show her beautiful Bella what kind of wealthy creatures she and 
Alfred had on hand, who would as one man fall at her feet enslaved. 
Fitting occasion made, Mrs. Lammle accordingly produced the 
most passable of those feverish, boastful, and indeffiiably loose 
gentlemen who were always lounging in and out of the City on 
questions of the Bourse and Greek and Spanish and India and 
Mexican and par and premium and discount and three-quarters and 
seven-eighths. Who in their agreeable manner did homage to Bella 
as if she were a compound of fine girl, thorough-bred horse, well- 
built drag, and remarkable pipe. But without the least effect, 
though even Mr. Fledgeby's attractions were cast into the scale. 

" I fear, Bella dear," said Mrs. Lammle one day in the chariot, 
" that you will be very hard to please." 

" I don't expect to be pleased, dear," said Bella, with a languid 
turn of her eyes. 

"Truly, my love," returned Sophronia, shaking her head, and 
smiling her best smile, "it would not be very easy to find a man 
worthy of your attractions." 

" The question is not a man, my dear," said Bella, coolly, " but 
an establishment." 

"My love," returned Mrs. Lammle, "your prudence amazes me 
— where did you study life so well ? — you are right. In such a 
case as yours, the object is a fitting establishment. You could not 
descend to an inadequate one from Mr. Boffin's house, and even if 
your beauty alone could not command it, it is to be assumed that 
Mr. and Mrs. Boffin will " 

"Oh ! they have already," Bella interposed. 

"No! Have they really ?" 

A little vexed by a suspicion that she had spoken precipitately, 
and withal a little defiant of her own vexation, Bella determined 
not to retreat. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 451 

" That is to say," she explained, " they have told me they mean 
to portion me as their adopted child, if you mean that. But don't 
mention it." 

" Mention it ! " replied Mrs. Lammle, as if she were full of awak- 
ened feeling at the suggestion of such an impossibility. " Men-tion 
it!" 

" I don't mind telling you, Mrs. Lammle " Bella began again. 

" My love, say Sophronia, or I must not say Bella." 

With a little short, petulant " Oh ! " Bella complied. " Oh ! — 
Sophronia then — I don't mind telling you, Sophronia, that I am 
convinced I have no heart as people call it ; and that I think that 
sort of thing is nonsense." 

" Brave girl ! " murmured Mrs. Lammle. 

"And so," pursued Bella, "as to seeking to please myself, I 
don't ; except in the one respect I have mentioned. I am indif- 
ferent otherwise." 

" But you can't help pleasing, Bella," said Mrs. Lammle, rally- 
ing her with an arch look and her best smile, "you can't help 
making a proud and an admiring husband. You may not care to 
please yourself, and you may not care to please him, but you are 
not a free agent as to pleasing : you are forced to do that, in spite 
of yourself, my dear ; so it may be a question whether you may 
not as well please yourself too, if you can." 

Now, the very grossness of this flattery put Bella upon proving 
that she actually did please in spite of herself. She had a misgiv- 
ing that she was doing wrong — though she had an indistinct 
foreshadowing that some harm might come of it thereafter, she 
little thought what consequences it would really bring about — 
but she went on with her confidence. 

"Don't talk of pleasing in spite of one's self, dear," said Bella. 
" I have had enough of that." 

"Ay?" cried Mrs. Lammle. "Am I already corroborated, 
Bella?" 

"Never mind, Sophronia, we will not speak of it any more. 
Don't ask me about it." 

This plainly meaning Do ask me about it, Mrs. Lammle did as 
she was requested. 

"Tell me, Bella. Come, my dear. What provoking burr has 
been inconveniently attracted to the charming skirts, and with 
difficulty shaken off?" 

" Provoking indeed," said Bella, " and no burr to boast of ! But 
don't ask me." 

"Shall I guess?" 

" You would never guess. What would you say to our Secre- 
tary?" 



452 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" My dear ! The hermit Secretary, who creeps up and down 
the back stairs, and is never seen ? " 

"I don't know about his creeping up and down the back stairs," 
said Bella, rather contemptuously, " further than knowing that he 
does no such thing ; and as to his never being seen, I should be 
content never to have seen him, though he is quite as visible as 
you are. But I pleased him (for my sins), and he had the presump- 
tion to tell me so." 

" The man never made a declaration to you, my dear Bella ? " 

" Are you sure of that, Sophronia 1 " said Bella. " / am not. 
In fact, I am sure of the contrary." 

"The man must be mad," said Mrs. Lammle, with a kind of 
resignation. 

" He appeared to be in his senses," returned Bella, tossing her 
head, "and he had plenty to say for himself. I told him my 
opinion of his declaration and his conduct, and dismissed him. 
Of course this has all been very inconvenient to me, and very dis- 
agreeable. It has remained a secret, however. That word reminds 
me to observe, Sophronia, that I have glided on into telling you 
the secret, and that I rely upon you never to mention it." 

"Mention it !" repeated Mrs. Lammle with her former feeling. 
"Men-tionit!" 

This time Sophronia was so much in earnest that she found it 
necessary to bend forward in the carriage and give Bella a kiss. 
A Judas order of kiss; for she thought, while she yet pressed 
Bella's hand after giving it, " Upon your own showing, you vain 
heartless girl, puffed up by the doting folly of a dustman, I need 
have no relenting towards you. If my husband, who sends me 
here, should form any schemes for making you a victim, I should 
certainly not cross him again." In those very same moments, Bella 
was thinking, "Why am I always at war with myself? Why 
have I told, as if upon compulsion, what I knew all along I ought 
to have withheld 1 Why am I making a friend of this woman be- 
side me, in spite of the whispers against her that I hear in my 
heart ? " 

As usual, there was no answer in the looking-glass when she got 
home and referred these questions to it. Perhaps if she had con- 
sulted some better oracle, the result might have been more satis- 
factory ; but she did not, and all things consequent marched the 
march before them. 

On one point connected with the watch she kept on Mr. Boffin, 
she felt very inquisitive, and that was the question whether the 
Secretaiy watched him too, and followed the sure and steady change 
in him, as she did ? Her very limited intercourse with Mr. Roke- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 453 

smith rendered this hard to find out. Their communication now 
at no time extended beyond the preservation of commonplace 
appearances before Mr. and Mrs. Boffin ; and if Bella and the 
Secretary were ever left alone together by any chance, he immedi- 
ately withdrew. She consulted his face when she could do so 
covertly, as she worked or read, and could make nothing of it. 
He looked subdued; but he had acquired a strong command of 
feature, and, whenever Mr. Boffin spoke to him in Bella's presence, 
or whatever revelation of himself Mr. Boffin made, the Secretary's 
face changed no more than a wall. A slightly knitted brow, that 
expressed nothing but an almost mechanical attention, and a com- 
pression of the mouth, that might have been a guard against a 
scornful smile — these she saw from morning to night, from day to 
day, from week to week, monotonous, unvarying, set, as in a piece 
of sculpture. 

The worst of the matter was, that it thus fell out insensibly — 
and most provokingly, as Bella complained to herself, in her im- 
petuous little manner — that her observation of Mr. Boffin involved 
a continual observation of Mr. Rokesmith. 

" Won't that extract a look from him ? " — " Can it be possible 
that makes no impression on him 1 " Such questions Bella would 
propose to herself, often as many times in a day as there were hours 
in it. Impossible to know. Always the same fixed face. 

" Can he be so base as to sell his veiy nature for two hundred a 
year ? " Bella would think. And then, " But why not 1 It's a 
mere question of price with others besides him. I suppose I 
would sell mine, if I could get enough for it." And so she would 
come round again to the war with herself. 

A kind of illegibility, though a diff'erent kind, stole over Mr. 
Boffin's face. Its old simplicity of expression got masked by a 
certain craftiness that assimilated even his good-humour to itself. 
His very smile was cunning, as if he had been studying smiles 
among the portraits of his misers. Saving an occasional burst of 
impatience, or coarse assertion of his mastery, his good-humour 
remained to him, but it had now a sordid alloy of distrust ; and 
though his eyes should twinkle and all his face should laugh, he 
would sit holding himself in his own arms, as if he had an inclina- 
tion to hoard himself up, and must always grudgingly stand on the 
defensive. 

What with taking heed of these two faces, and what with feel- 
ing conscious that the stealthy occupation must set some mark on 
her own, Bella soon began to think that there was not a candid 
or a natural face among them all but Mrs. Boffin's. None the 
less because it was far less radiant than of yore, faithfully reflect- 



454 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

iiig in its anxiety and regret every line of change in the Golden 
Dustman's. 

"Rokesmith," said Mr. Boffin one evening when they were all 
in his room again, and he and the Secretary had been going over 
some accounts, " I am spending too much money. Or leastways, 
you are spending too much for me." 

"You are rich, sir." 

"I am not," said Mr. Boffin. 

The sharpness of the retort was next to telling the Secretary 
that he lied. But it brought no change of expression into the set 
face. 

"I tell you I am not rich," repeated Mr. Boffin, "and I won't 
have it." 

"You are not rich, sir?" repeated the Secretary, in measured 
words. 

"Well," returned Mr. Boffin, "if I am, that's my business. I 
am not going to spend at this rate, to please you, or anybody. 
You wouldn't like it, if it was your money." 

" Even in that impossible case, sir, I " 

" Hold your tongue ! " said Mr. Boffin. " You oughtn't to 
like it in any case. There ! I didn't mean to be rude, but you 
put me out so, and after all I'm master. I didn't intend to 
tell you to hold your tongue. I beg your pardon. Don't hold 
your tongue. Only, don't contradict. Did you ever come across 
the life of Mr. Elwes 1 " referring to his favourite subject as 
last. 

" The miser ? " 

"Ah, i^eople called him a miser. People are always calling 
other people something. Did you ever read about him ? " 

"I think so." 

" He never owned to being rich, and yet he might have bought 
me twice over. Did you ever hear of Daniel Dancer ? " 

" Another miser 1 Yes." 

"He was a good 'un," said Mr. Boffin, "and he had a sister 
worthy of him. They never called themselves rich neither. If 
they had called themselves rich, most likely they wouldn't have 
been so." 

" They lived and died very miserably. Did they not, sir ? " 

"No, I don't know that they did," said Mr. Boffin, curtly. 

"Then they are not the Misers I mean. Those abject 
wretches " 

"Don't call names, Rokesmith," said Mr. Boffin. 

" That exemplary brother and sister — lived and died in 

the foulest and filthiest degradation." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 455 

"They pleased themselves," said Mr. Boffin, "and I suppose 
they could have done no more if they had spent their money. 
But however, I ain't going to fling mine away. Keep the expenses 
down. The fact is, you ain't enough here, Rokesmith. It wants 
constant attention in the littlest things. Some of us will be 
dying in a workhouse next." 

"As the persons you have cited," quietly remarked the Secre- 
tary, " thought they would, if I remember, sir ? " 

"And very creditable in 'em too," said Mr. Boffin. "Very 
independent in 'em ! But never mind them just now. Have 
you given notice to quit your lodgings ? " 

"Under your direction, I have, sir." 

"Then I tell you what," said Mr. Boffin; "pay the quarter's 
rent — pay the quarter's rent, it'll be the cheapest thing in the 
end — and come here at once, so that you may be always on the 
spot, day and night, and keep the expenses down. You'll charge 
the quarter's rent to me, and we must try and save it somewhere. 
You've got some lovely furniture ; haven't you ? " 

" The furniture in my rooms is my own." 

" Then we shan't have to buy any for you. In case you was 
to think it," said Mr. Boffin, with a look of peculiar shrewdness, 
*^'so honourably independent in you as to make it a relief to 
your mind to make that furniture over to me in the light of a 
set-off against the quarter's rent, why ease your mind, ease your 
mind. I don't ask it, but I won't stand in your way if you 
should consider it due to yourself. As to your room, choose 
any empty room at the top of the house." 

" Any empty room will do for me," said the Secretary. 

"You can take your pick," said Mr. Boffin, "and it will be 
as good as eight or ten shillings a week added to your income. 
I won't deduct for it ; I look to you to make it up handsomely 
by keeping the expenses down. Now, if you'll show a light, 
I'll come to your office-room and dispose of a letter or two." 

On that clear, generous face of Mrs. Boffin's, Bella had seen 
such traces of a pang at the heart while this dialogue was being 
held, that she had not the courage to turn her eyes to it when 
they were left alone. Feigning to be intent on her embroidery, 
she sat plying her needle until her busy hand was stopped by 
Mrs. Boffin's hand being lightly laid upon it„ Yielding to the 
touch, she felt her hand carried to the good soul's lips, and felt 
a tear fall on it. 

" Oh, my loved husband ! " said Mrs. Boffin. " This is hard 
to see and hear. But, my dear Bella, believe me that in spite 
of all the change in him, he is the best of men." 



456 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

He came back, at the moment when Bella had taken the hand 
comfortingly between her own. 

"Eh?" said he, mistrustfully looking in at the door. "What's 
she telling you ? " 

"She's only praising you, sir," said Bella. 

" Praising me ? You are sure 1 Not blaming me for standing 
on my own defence against a crew of plunderers, who would 
suck me dry by driblets? Not blaming me for getting a little 
hoard together ? " 

He came up to them, and his wife folded her hands upon 
his shoulder, and shook her head as she laid it on her hands. 

" There, there, there ! " urged Mr. Boffin, not unkindly. "Don't 
take on, old lady." 

" But I can't bear to see you so, my dear." 

" Nonsense ! Recollect we are not our old selves. Recollect, 
we must scrunch or be scrunched. Recollect, we must hold our 
own. Recollect, money makes money. Don't you be uneasy, Bella, 
my child; don't you be doubtful. The more I save, the more 
you shall have." 

Bella thought it was well for his wife that she was musing 
with her affectionate face on his shoulder ; for there was a cun- 
ning light in his eyes as he said all this, which seemed to cast a 
disagreeable illumination on the change in him, and make it 
morally uglier. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO WORSE COMPANY. 

It had come to pass that Mr. Silas Wegg now rarely attended 
the minion of fortune and the worm of the hour, at his (the 
worm's and minion's) own house, but lay under general instruc- 
tions to await him within a certain margin of hours at the Bower. 
Mr. Wegg took this arrangement in great dudgeon, because the 
appointed hours were evening hours, and those he considered 
precious to the progress of the friendly move. But it was quite 
in character, he bitterly remarked to Mr. Venus, that the upstart 
who had trampled on those eminent creatures, Miss Elizabeth, 
Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, should oppress his 
literary man. 

The Roman Empire having worked out its destruction, Mr. 
Boffin next appeared in a cab with Rollin's Ancient History, 
which valuable work being found to possess lethargic properties, 
broke down, at about the period when the whole of the army 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 457 

of Alexander the Macedonian (at that time about forty thousand 
strong) burst into tears simultaneously, on his being taken with 
a shivering fit after bathing. The Wars of the Jews likewise 
languishing under Mr. Wegg's generalship, Mr. Boffin arrived 
in another cab with Plutarch : whose Lives he found in the 
sequel extremely entertaining, though he hoped Plutarch might not 
expect him to believe them all. What to believe, in the course of his 
reading, was Mr. Boffin's chief literary difliculty indeed ; for some 
time he was divided in his mind between half, all, or none; at 
length, when he decided, as a moderate man, to compound with 
half, the question still remained, which half? And that stum- 
bling block he never got over. 

One evening, when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to the 
arrival of his patron in a cab, accompanied by some profane his- 
torian charged with unutterable names of incomprehensible peoples, 
of impossible descent, waging wars any number of years and sylla- 
bles long, and carrying illimitable hosts and riches about, with the 
greatest ease, beyond the confines of geography — one evening the 
usual time passed by, and no patron appeared. After half an 
hour's grace, Mr. Wegg proceeded to the outer gate, and there 
executed a whistle, conveying to Mr. Venus, if perchance within 
hearing, the tidings of his being at home and disengaged. Forth 
from the shelter of a neighbouring wall, Mr. Venus then emerged. 
"Brother in arms," said Mr. Wegg, in excellent spirits, "wel- 
come ! " 

In return, Mr. Venus gave him a rather dry good evening. 
"Walk in, brother," said Silas, clapping him on the shoulder, 
" and take your seat in my chimney corner ; for what says the 
ballad? 

' No malice to dread, sir. 

And no falsehood to fear, 

But truth to delight me, Mr. Venus, 

And I forgot what to cheer. 

Li toddle dee om dee. 

And something to guide, 

My ain fireside, sir. 

My ain fireside.' " 

With this quotation (depending for its neatness rather on the 
spirit than the words), Mr. Wegg conducted his guest to his 
hearth. 

" And you come, brother," said Mr. Wegg, in a hospitable glow, 
" you come like I don't know what — exactly like it — I shouldn't 
know you from it — shedding a halo all around you." 

" What kind of halo ? " asked Mr. Venus. 



458 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" 'Ope, sir," replied Silas. " That's your halo." 

Mr. Venus appeared doubtful on the point, and looked rather 

discontentedly at the fire. 

"We'll devote the evening, brother," exclaimed Wegg, "to 

prosecute our friendly move. And arterwards, crushing a flowing 

wine-cup — which I allude to brewing rum and water — we'll 

pledge one another. For what says the Poet? 

' And you needn't, Mr. Venus, be your black bottle. 
For surely I'll be mme, 
And we'll take a glass with a slice of lemon in it to which you're 

partial, 
For auld lang syne.' " 

This flow of quotation and hospitality in Wegg indicated his 
observation of some little querulousness on the part of Venus. 

"Why, as to the friendly move," observed the last-named gentle- 
man, rubbing his knees peevishly, " one of my objections to it is, 
that it donH move." 

"Rome, brother," returned Wegg : "a city which (it may not 
be generally known) originated in twins and a wolf, and ended in 
Imperial marble, wasn't built in a day." 

" Did I say it was ? " asked Venus. 

" No, you did not, brother. Well inquired." 

" But I do say," proceeded Venus, " that I am taken from among 
my trophies of anatomy, am called upon to exchange my human 
warious for mere coal-ashes warious, and nothing comes of it. I 
think I must give up." 

" No, sir ! " remonstrated Wegg, enthusiastically. " No, sir ! 

' Charge, Chester, charge, 
On, Mr. Venus, on ! ' 

Never say die, sir ! A man of your mark ! " 

"It's not so much saying it that I object to," returned Mr. 
Venus, '' as doing it. And having got to do it whether or no, I 
can't afford to waste my time on groping for nothing in cinders." 

"But think how little time you have given to the move, sir, 
after all," urged Wegg. "Add the evenings so occupied together, 
and what do they come to % And you, sir, harmoniser with myself 
in opinions, views, and feelings, you with the patience to fit to- 
gether on wires the whole framework of society — I allude to the 
human skelinton — you to give in so soon ! " 

"I don't like it," returned Mr. Venus moodily, as he put his 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 459 

head between his knees and stuck up his dusty hair. "And 
there's no encouragement to go on." 

"Not them Mounds without," said Mr. Wegg, extending his 
right hand with an air of solemn reasoning, "encouragement? 
Not them Mounds now looking down ujDon us ? " 

"They're too big," grumbled Venus. "What's a scratch here 
and a scrape there, a poke in this place and a dig in the other, to 
them 1 Besides : what have we found ? " 

" What have we found ? " cried Wegg, delighted to be able to 
acquiesce. "Ah! There I grant you, comrade. Nothing. But 
on the contrary, comrade, what ma^ we find 1 There you'll grant 
me. Anything." 

"I don't like it," pettishly returned Venus as before. "I came 
into it without enough consideration. And besides again. Isn't 
your own Mr. Boffin well acquainted with the Mounds? And 
wasn't he well acquainted with the deceased and his ways ? And 
has he ever showed any expectation of finding anything ? " 

At that moment wheels were heard. 

"Now, I should be loth," said Mr. Wegg, w^ith an air of patient 
injury, " to think so ill of him as to suppose him capable of coming 
at this time of night. And yet it sounds like him." 

A ring at the yard bell. 

"It is him," said Mr. Wegg, "and he is capable of it. I am 
sorry, because I could have wished to keep up a little lingering 
fragment of respect for him." 

Here Mr. Boffin was heard lustily calling at the yard gate, 
" Halloa ! Wegg ! Halloa ! " 

" Keep your seat, Mr. Venus," said Wegg. " He may not stop." 
And then called out, " Halloa, sir ! Halloa ! I'm with you directly, 
sir ! Half a minute, Mr. Boffin. Coming, sir, as fast as my leg 
will bring me ! " And so with a show of much cheerful alacrity 
stumped out to the gate with a light, and there, through the win- 
dow of a cab, descried Mr. Boffin inside, blocked up with books. 

"Here ! lend a hand, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin excitedly, "I can't 
get out till the way is cleared for me. This is the Annual Register, 
Wegg, in a cabful of wollumes. Do you know him ? " 

" Know the Animal Register, sir ? " returned the Impostor, who 
had caught the name imperfectly. " For a trifling wager, I think 
I could find any Animal in him, blindfold, Mr. Boffin." 

"And here's Kirby's Wonderful Museum," said Mr. Boffin, "and 
Caulfield's Characters, and Wilson's. Such Characters, Wegg, such 
Characters ! I must have one or two of the best of 'em to-night. 
It's amazing what places they used to put the guineas in, wrapped 
up in rags. Catch hold of that pile of wollumes, Wegg, or it'll 



460 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

bulge out and burst into the mud. Is there any one about, to 
help?" 

" There's a friend of mine, sir, that had the intention of spending 
the evening with me when I gave you up — much against my will 
— for the night." 

"Call him out," cried Mr. Boffin in a bustle; "get him to bear 
a hand. Don't drop that one under your arm. It's Dancer. 
Him and his sister made pies of a dead sheep they found when 
they were out a walking. Where's your friend ? Oh, here's your 
friend. Would you be so good as help Wegg and myself with these 
books? But don't take Jemmy Taylor of South wark, nor yet 
Jemmy Wood of Gloucester. These are the two Jemmys. I'll 
carry them myself." 

Not ceasing to talk and bustle, in a state of great excitement, 
Mr. Boffin directed the removal and arrangement of the books, 
appearing to be in some sort beside himself until they were all 
deposited on the floor, and the cab was dismissed. 

" There ! " said Mr. Boffin, gloating over them. " There they 
are, like the four-and- twenty fiddlers — all of a row. Get on your 
spectacles, Wegg ; I know where to find the best of 'em, and we'll 
have a taste at once of what we have got before us. What's your 
friend's name ? " 

Mr. Wegg presented his friend as Mr. Venus. 

" Eh ? " cried Mr. Boffin, catching at the name. " Of Clerken- 
well?" 

" Of Clerkenwell, sir," said Mr. Venus. 

"Why, I've heard of you," cried Mr. Boffin. "I heard of you 
in the old man's time. You knew him. Did you ever buy any- 
thing of him ? " With piercing eagerness. 

" No, sir," returned Venus. 

" But he showed you things, didn't he ? " 

Mr. Venus, with a glance at his friend, replied in the affirmative. 

" What did he show you ? " asked Mr. Boffin, putting his hands 
behind him, and eagerly advancing his head. " Did he show you 
boxes, little cabinets, pocket-books, parcels, anything locked or 
sealed, anything tied up ? " 

Mr. Venus shook his head. 

" Are you a judge of china ? " 

Mr. Venus again shook his head. 

" Because if he had ever showed you a teapot, I should be glad 
to know of it," said Mr. Boffin. And then, with his right hand at 
his lips, repeated thoughtfully, "A Teapot, a Teapot," and glanced 
over the books on the floor, as if he knew there was something 
interesting connected with a teapot somewhere among them. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 461 

Mr. Wegg and Mr. Venus looked at one another wonderingly : 
and Mr. Wegg, in fitting on his spectacles, opened his eyes wide, 
over their rims, and tapped the side of his nose : as an admonition 
to Venus to keep himself generally wide awake. 

"A Teapot," repeated Mr. BoflBn, continuing to muse and 
survey the books ; " a Teapot, a Teapot. Are you ready, 
Wegg?" 

"I am at your service, sir," replied that gentleman, taking his 
usual seat on the usual settle, and poking his wooden leg under the 
table before it. " Mr. Venus, would you make yourself useful, and 
take a seat beside me, sir, for the conveniency of snuffing the 
candles 1 " 

Venus complying with the invitation while it was yet being given, 
Silas pegged at him with his wooden leg to call his particular atten- 
tion to Mr. Bofiin standing musing before the fire, in the space 
between the two settles. 

" Hem ! Ahem ! " coughed Mr. Wegg to attract his employer's 
attention. "Would you wish to commence with an Animal, sir 
— from the Register 1 " 

"No," said Mr. Boffin, "no, Wegg." With that, producing a 
little book from his breast-pocket, he handed it with great care to 
the literary gentleman, and inquired, " What do you call that, 
Wegg 1 " 

" This, sir," replied Silas, adjusting his spectacles, and referring to 
the title-page, " is Merry weather's Lives and Anecdotes of Misers. 
Mr. Venus, would you make yourself useful and draw the candles 
a little nearer, sir ? " This, to have a special opportunity of bestow- 
ing a stare upon his comrade. 

"Which of 'em have you got in that lot?" asked Mr. Boffin. 
" Can you find out pretty easy 1 " 

"Well, sir," replied Silas, turning to the table of contents and 
slowly fluttering the leaves of the book, " I should say they must be 
pretty well all here, sir ; here's a large assortment, sir ; my eye 
catches John Overs, sir, John Little, sir, Dick Jarrel, John Elwes, 
the Reverend Mr. Jones of Blewbury, Vulture Hopkins, Daniel 
Dancer " 

"Give us Dancer, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin. 

With another stare at his comrade, Silas sought and found the 
place. 

" Page a hundred and nine, Mr. Boffin. Chapter eight. Con- 
tents of chapter, ' His birth and estate. His garments and out- 
ward appearance. Miss Dancer and her feminine graces. The 
Miser's Mansion. The finding of a treasure. The Story of the 
Mutton Pies. A Miser's Idea of Death. Bob, the Miser's cur. 



462 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Griffiths and his Master. How to turn a penny. A substitute 
for a Fire. The Advantages of keeping a Snuff-box. The Miser 
dies without a Shirt. The Treasures of a Dunghill ' " 

" Eh ? What's that ? " demanded Mr. Boffin. 

" ' The Treasures,' sir," repeated Silas, reading very distinctly, 
" ' of a Dunghill.' Mr. Venus, sir, would you obleege with the 
snuffers ? " This, to secure attention to his adding with his lips 
only, " Mounds ! " 

Mr. Boffin drew an arm-chair into the space where he stood, and 
said, seating himself and slily rubbing his hands : 

"Give us Dancer." 

Mr. Wegg pursued the biography of that eminent man through 
its various phases of avarice and dirt, through Miss Dancer's death 
on a sick regimen of cold dumpling, and through Mr. Dancer's 
keeping his rags together with a hay band, and warming his dinner 
by sitting upon it, down to the consolatory incident of his dying 
naked in a sack. After which he read on as follows : 

" ' The house, or rather the heap of ruins, in which Mr. Dancer 
lived, and which at his death devolved to the right of Captain 
Holmes, was a most miserable, decayed building, for it had not 
been repaired for more than half a century." 

(Here Mr. Wegg eyed his comrade and the room in which they 
sat : which had not been repaired for a long time.) 

" ' But though poor in external structure, the ruinous fabric was 
very rich in the interior. It took many weeks to explore its whole 
contents, and Captain Holmes found it a very agreeable task to 
dive into the miser's secret hoards.' " 

(Here Mr. Wegg repeated 'secret hoards,' and pegged his com- 
rade again.) 

" ' One of Mr. Dancer's richest escritoires was found to be a 
dungheap in the cowhouse ; a sum but little short of two thousand 
five hundred pounds was contained in this rich piece of manure ; 
and in an old jacket, carefully tied, and strongly nailed down to 
the manger, in bank notes and gold were found five hundred pounds 
more.' " 

(Here Mr. Wegg's wooden leg started forward under the table, 
and slowly elevated itself as he read on.) 

" * Several bowls were discovered filled with guineas and half- 
guineas ; and at different times on searching the corners of the 
house they found various parcels of bank notes. Some were 
crammed into the crevices of the wall ; ' " 

(Here Mr. Venus looked at the wall.) 

" ' Bundles were hid under the cushions and covers of the 
chairs ; ' " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 463 

(Here Mr, Venus looked under himself on the settle.) 

" ' Some were reposing snugly at the back of the drawers ; and 
notes amounting to six hundred pounds were found neatly doubled 
up in the inside of an old teapot. In the stable the Captain found 
jugs full of old dollars and shillings. The chimney was not left 
unsearched, and paid very well for the trouble; for in nineteen 
different holes, all filled with soot, were found various sums of 
money, amounting together to more than two hundred pounds.' " 

On the way to this crisis Mr. Wegg's wooden leg had gradually 
elevated itself more and more, and he had nudged Mr. Venus with 
his opposite elbow deeper and deeper, until at length the preserva- 
tion of his balance became incompatible with the two actions, and 
he now dropped over sideways upon that gentleman, squeezing him 
against the settle's edge. Nor did either of the two, for some few 
seconds, make any effort to recover himself; both remaining in a 
kind of pecuniary swoon. 

But the sight of Mr. Boffin sitting in the arm-chair hugging 
himself, with his eyes upon the fire, acted as a restorative. 
Counterfeiting a sneeze to cover their movements, Mr. Wegg with 
a spasmodic " Tish-ho ! " pulled himself and Mr. Venus up in a 
masterly manner. 

" Let's have some more," said Mr. Boffin, hungrily. 

"John Elwes is the next, sir. Is it your pleasui'e to take John 
Elwes?" 

" Ah !." said Mr. Boffin. " Let's hear what John did." 

He did not appear to have hidden anything, so went off rather 
flatly. But an exemplary lady named Wilcocks, who had stowed 
away gold and silver in a pickle-pot in a clockcase, a canister-full 
of treasure in a hole under her stairs, and a quantity of money in 
an old rat-trap, revived the interest. To her succeeded another 
lady, claiming to be a pauper, whose wealth was found wrapped 
up in little scraps of paper and old rag. To her, another lady, 
applewoman by trade, who had saved a fortune of ten thousand 
pounds and hidden it "here and there, in cracks and corners, 
behind bricks and under the flooring." To her, a French gentle- 
man, who had crammed up his chimney, rather to the detriment 
of its drawing powers, "a leather valise, containing twenty thou- 
sand francs, gold coins, and a large quantity of precious stones," as 
discovered by a chimneysweep after his death. By these steps 
Mr. Wegg arrived at a concluding instance of the human Magpie : 

" ' Many years ago, there lived at Cambridge a miserly old 
couple of the name of Jardine : they had two sons : the father 
was a perfect miser, and at his death one thousand guineas were 
discovered secreted in his bed. The two sons grew up as parsi- 



464 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

monious as their sire. When about twenty years of age, they 
commenced business at Cambridge as drapers, and they continued 
there until their death. The establishment of the Messrs. Jardine 
was the most dirty of all the shops in Cambridge. Customers 
seldom went in to purchase, except perhaps out of curiosity. The 
brothers were most disreputable-looking beings ; for, although sur- 
rounded with gay apparel as their staple in trade, they wore the 
most filthy rags themselves. It is said that they had no bed, and, 
to save the expense of one, always slept on a bundle of packing- 
cloths under the counter. In their housekeeping they were penu- 
rious in the extreme. A joint of meat did not grace their board 
for twenty years. Yet when the first of the brothers died, the 
other, much to his surprise, found large sums of money which had 
been secreted even from him.'" 

" There ! " cried Mr. Boffin. " Even from him, you see ! There 
was only two of 'em, and yet one of 'em hid from the other." 

Mr. Venus, who since his introduction to the French gentleman 
had been stooping to peer up the chimney, had his attention 
recalled by the last sentence, and took the liberty of repeating it. 

" Do you like it 1 " asked Mr. Boffin, turning suddenly. 

" I beg your pardon, sir 1 " 

" Do you like what Wegg's been a reading 1 " 

Mr. Venus answered that he found it extremely interesting. 

"Then come again," said Mr. Boffin, "and hear some more. 
Come when you like ; come the day after to-morrow, half an hour 
sooner. There's plenty more; there's no end to it." 

Mr. Venus expressed his acknowledgments and accepted the 
invitation. 

" It's wonderful what's been hid, at one time and another," said 
Mr. Boffin, ruminating; "truly wonderful." 

"Meaning, sir," observed Wegg, with a propitiatory face to draw 
him out, and with another peg at his friend and brother, " in the 
way of money ? " 

"Money," said Mr. Boffin. "Ah ! And papers." 

Mr. Wegg, in a languid transport, again dropped over on Mr. 
Venus, and again recovering himself, masked his emotions with 
a sneeze. 

" Tish-ho ! Did you say papers too, sir? Been hidden, sir?" 

"Hidden and forgot," said Mr. Boifin. "Why the bookseller 
that sold me the Wonderful Museum — where's the Wonderful 
Museum?" He was on his knees on the floor in a moment, 
groping eagerly among the books. 

" Can I assist you, sir ? " asked Wegg. 

"No, I have got it; here it is," said Mr. Boffin, dusting it with 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 465 

the sleeve of his coat, " Wolhime four. I know it was the fourth 
wolhime, that the bookseller read it to me out of. Look for -it, 
Wegg." 

Silas took the book and turned the leaves. 

"Remarkable petrifaction, sir?" 

"No, that's not it," said Mr. Boffin. "It can't have been a 
petrifaction." 

"Memoirs of General John Reid, commonly called The Walking 
Rushlight, sir? With portrait." 

" No, nor yet him," said Mr. Boffin. 

"Remarkable case of a person who swallowed a crown-piece, 
sir?" 

" To hide it ? " asked Mr. Boffin. 

"Why, no, sir," replied Wegg, consulting the text, "it appears 
to have been done by accident. Oh ! This next must be it. 
' Singular discovery of a will, lost twenty-one years.' " 

" That's it ! " cried Mr. Boffin. " Read that." 

"'A most extraordinary case,'" read Silas Wegg aloud, "'was 
tried at the last Maryborough assizes in Ireland. It was briefly 
this. Robert Baldwin, in March 1782, made his will, in which 
he devised the lands now in question to the children tef his young- 
est son ; soon after which his faculties failed him, and he became 
altogether childish, and died, above eighty years old. The defend- 
ant, the eldest son, immediately afterwards gave out that his father 
had destroyed the will, and no will being found, he entered into 
possession of the lands in question, and so matters remained for 
twenty-one years, the whole family during all that time believing 
that the father had died without a will. But after twenty-one 
years the defendant's wife died, and he very soon afterwards, at 
the age of seventy-eight, married a very young woman : which 
caused some anxiety to his two sons, whose poignant expressions 
of this feeling so exasperated their father, that he in his resent- 
ment executed a will to disinherit his eldest son, and in his fit of 
anger showed it to his second son, who instantly determined to get 
at it, and destroy it, in order to preserve the property to his 
brother. With this view, he broke open his father's desk, where 
he found — not his father's will which he sought after, but the 
will of his grandfather, which was then altogether forgotten in the 
family.' " 

" There ! " said Mr. Boffin. " See what men put away and for- 
get, or mean to destroy, and don't ! " He then added in a slow 
tone, " As — ton — ish — ing ! " And as he rolled his eyes all 
round the room, W^egg and Venus likewise rolled their eyes all 
round the room. And then Wegg, singly, fixed his eyes on Mr. 

2h 



4G6 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Boffin looking at the fire again ; as if he had a mind to spring upon 
him and demand his thoughts or his life. 

"However, time's up for to-night," said Mr. Boffin, waving his 
hand after a silence. " More, the day after to-morrow. Range 
the books upon the shelves, Wegg. I dare say Mr. Venus will be 
so kind as to help you." 

While speaking, he thrust his hand into the breast of his outer 
coat, and struggled with some object there that was too large to be 
got out easily. What w^as the stupefaction of the friendly movers 
when this object at last emerging, proved to be a much-dilapidated 
dark lantern ! 

Without at all noticing the eflfect produced by this little instru- 
ment, Mr. Boffin stood it on his knee, and, producing a box of 
matches, deliberately lighted the candle in the lantern, blew out 
the kindled match, and cast the end into the fire. "I'm going, 
Wegg," he then announced, " to take a turn about the j^lace and 
rouMd the yard. I don't want you. Me and this same lantern 
have taken hundreds — thousands — of such turns in our time 
together." 

"But I couldn't think, sir — not on any account, I couldn't," — 
Wegg was politely beginning, when Mr. Boffin, who had risen and 
was going towards the door, stopped : 

" I have told you that I don't want you, Wegg." 

Wegg looked intelligently thoughtful, as if that had not occurred 
to his mind until he now brought it to bear on the circumstance. 
He had nothing for it but to let Mr. Boffin go out and shut the 
door behind him. But, the instant he was on the other side of it, 
Wegg clutched Venus with both hands, and said in a choking whis- 
per, as if he were being strangled : 

"Mr. Venus, he must be followed, he must be watched, he 
mustn't be lost sight of for a moment." 

"Why mustn't he ?" asked Venus, also strangling. 

" Comrade, you might have noticed I was a little elewated in 
spirits when you come in to-night. I've found something." 

" What have you found 1 " asked Venus, clutching him with both 
hands, so that they stood interlocked like a coujjle of preposterous 
gladiators. 

" There's no time to tell you now. I think he must have gone 
to look for it. We must have an eye upon him instantly." 

Releasing each other, they crept to the door, opened it softly, 
and peeped out. It was a cloudy night, and the black shadow of 
the Mounds made the dark yard darker. " If not a double swin- 
dler," whispered Wegg, " why a dark lantern ? W^e could have seen 
what he was about, if he had carried a light one. Softly, this way." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 467 

Cautiously along the path that was bordered by fragments of 
crockery set in ashes, the two stole after him. They could hear 
him at his peculiar trot, crushing the loose cinders as he went. 
"He knows the place by heart," muttered Silas, "and don't need 
to turn his lantern on, confound him ! " But he did turn it on, 
almost in that same instant, and flashed its light upon the first of 
the Mounds. 

" Is that the spot? " asked Venus in a whisper. 

" He's warm," said Silas in the same tone. " He's precious 
warm. He's close. I think he must be going to look for it. 
What's that he's got in his hand ? " 

"A shovel," answered Venus. "And he knows how to use it, 
remember, fifty times as well as either of us." 

" If he looks for it and misses it, partner," suggested Wegg, 
" what shall we do ? " 

" First of all, wait till he does," said Venus. 

Discreet advice too, for he darkened his lantern again, and the 
mound turned black. After a few seconds, he turned the light on 
once more, and was seen standing at the foot of the second mound, 
slowly raising the lantern little by little until he held it up at arm's 
length, as if he were examining the condition of the whole surface. 

" That can't be the spot too," said Venus. 

"No," said Wegg, "he's getting cold." 

"It strikes me," whispered Venus, "that he wants to find out 
whether any one has been groping about there." 

" Hush ! " returned Wegg, " he's getting colder and colder ! — 
Now he's freezing ! " 

This exclamation was elicited by his having turned the lantern off 
again, and on again, and being visible at the foot of the third mound. 

" Why, he's going up it ! " said Venus. 

" Shovel and all ! " said Wegg. 

At a nimble trot, as if the shovel over his shoulder stimulated 
him by reviving old associations, Mr. Boffin ascended tlie "serpen- 
tining walk," up the Mound which he had described to Silas Wegg 
on the occasion of their beginning to decline and fall. On striking 
into it he turned his lantern off. The two followed him, stooping 
low, so that their figures might make no mark in relief against the 
sky when he should turn his lantern on again. Mr. Venus took 
the lead, towing Mr. Wegg, in order that his refractory leg might 
be promptly extricated from any pitfalls it should dig for itself. 
They could just make out that the Golden Dustman stopped to 
breathe. Of course they stopped too, instantly. 

" This is his own Mound," whispered Wegg, as he recovered his 
wind, " this one," 



468 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Wliy all three are his own," returned Venus. 

"So he thinks ; but he's used to call this his own, because it's 
the one first left to him ; the one that was his legacy when it was 
all he took under the will." 

"When he shows his light," said Venus, keeping watch upon 
his dusky figure all the time, "drop lower and keep closer." 

He went on again, and they followed again. Gaining the top of 
the Mound, he turned on his light — but only partially — and 
stood it on the ground. A bare lopsided, weather-beaten pole was 
planted in the ashes there, and had been there many a year. Hard 
by this pole his lantern stood ; lighting a few feet of the lower part 
of it and a little of the ashy surface around, and then casting off* a 
purposeless little clear trail of light into the air. 

" He can never be going to dig up the pole ! " whispered Venus 
as they dropped low and kept close. 

" Perhaps it's holler and full of something," whispered Wegg. 

He was going to dig, with whatsoever object, for he tucked up 
his cuffs and spat on his hands, and then went at it like an old 
digger as he was. He had no design upon the pole, except that he 
measured a shovel's length from it before beginning, nor was it his 
purpose to dig deep. Some dozen or so of expert strokes sufficed. 
Then, he stopped, looked down in the cavity, bent over it, and took 
out what appeared to be an ordinary case-bottle ; one of those 
squat, high-shouldered, short-necked glass bottles which the Dutch- 
man is said to keep his Courage in. As soon as he had done this, 
he turned off his lantern, and they could hear that he was filling up 
the hole in the dark. The ashes being easily moved by a skilful 
hand, the spies took this as a hint to make off in good time. 
Accordingly, Mr. Venus slipped past Mr. Wegg and towed him 
down. But Mr. Wegg's descent was not accomplished without 
some personal inconvenience, for his self-willed leg sticking into the 
ashes about half-way down, and time pressing, Mr. Venus took the 
liberty of hauling him from his tether by the collar : which occa- 
sioned him to make the rest of the journey on his back, with his 
head enveloped in the skirts of his coat, and his wooden leg coming 
last, like a drag. So flustered was Mr. Wegg by this mode of 
travelling, that when he was set on the level ground with his intel- 
lectual developments uppermost, he was quite unconscious of his 
bearings, and had not the least idea where his place of residence 
was to be found, until Mr. Venus shoved him into it. Even then 
he staggered round and round, weakly staring about him, until Mr. 
Venus with a hard brush brushed his senses into him and the dust 
out of him. 

Mr. Boflfin came down leisurely, for this brushing process had 





THE DUTCH BOTTLE. 



470 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

been well accomplished, and Mr. Venus had had time to take his 
breath, before he reappeared. That he had the bottle somewhere 
about him could not be doubted; where, was not so clear. He 
wore a large rough coat, buttoned over, and it might be in any one 
of half a dozen pockets. 

"What's the matter, Wegg?" said Mr. Boffin. "You are as 
pale as a candle." 

Mr. Wegg replied, with literal exactness, that he felt as if he 
had had a turn. 

" Bile," said Mr. Boffin, blowing out the light in the lantern, 
shutting it up, and stowing it away in the breast of his coat as 
before. "Are you subject to bile, Wegg?" 

Mr. Wegg again replied, with strict adherence to truth, that he 
didn't think he had ever had a similar sensation in his head, to 
anything like the same extent. 

" Physic yourself to-morrow, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin, "to be in 
order for next night. By-the-bye, this .neighbourhood is going to 
have a loss, Wegg." 

"A loss, sir?" 

"Going to lose the Mounds." 

The friendly movers made such an obvious effort not to look at 
one another, that they might as well have stared at one another 
with all their might. 

"Have you parted with them, Mr. Boffin?" asked Silas. 

"Yes; they're going. Mine's as good as gone already." 

" You mean the little one of the three, with the pole atop, sir ? " 

"Yes," said Mr. Boffin, rubbing his ear in his old way, with that 
new touch of craftiness added to it. " It has fetched a penny. It'll 
begin to be carted off to-morrow." 

"Have you been out to take leave of your old friend, sir?" 
asked Silas, jocosely. 

" No," said Mr. Boffin. " What the devil put tliat in your head ? " 

He was so sudden and rough, that Wegg, who had been hovering 
closer and closer to his skirts, despatching the back of his hand on 
exploring expeditions in search of the bottle's surface, retired two 
or three paces. 

"No offence, sir," said Wegg, humbly. "No offence." 

IMr. Boffin eyed him as a dog might eye another dog who wanted 
his bone ; and actually retorted with a low growl, as the dog might 
have retorted. 

" Good night," he said, after having sunk into a moody silence, 
with his hands clasped behind him, and his eyes suspiciously wan- 
dering about Wegg. — " No ! Stop there. I know the way out, 
and I want no light." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 471 

Avarice, and the evening's legends of avarice, and the inflam- 
matory effect of what he had seen, and perhaps the rush of his ill- 
conditioned blood to his brain in his descent, wrought Silas Wegg 
to such a pitch of insatiable appetite, that when the door closed he 
made a swoop at it and drew Venus along with him. 

" He mustn't go," he cried. " We mustn't let him go ! He has 
got that bottle about him. We must have that bottle." 

"Why, you wouldn't take it by force?" said Venus, restraining 
him. 

" Wouldn't I ? Yes I would. I'd take it by any force, I'd have 
it at any price ! Ai'e you so afraid of one old man as to let him 
go, you coward ? " 

" I am so afraid of you as not to let you go," muttered Venus, 
sturdily clasping him in his arms. 

" Did you hear him % " retorted Wegg. " Did you hear him say 
that he was resolved to disappoint us % Did you hear him say, you 
cur, that he was going to have the Mounds cleared off, when no 
doubt the whole place will be rummaged? If you haven't the 
spirit of a mouse to defend your rights, I have. Let me go 
after him." 

As in his wildness he was making a strong struggle for it, Mr. 
Venus deemed it expedient to lift him, throw him, and fall with 
him; well knowing that, once down, he would not be up again 
easily with his wooden leg. So they both rolled on the floor, and, 
as they did so, Mr. Boffin shut the gate. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION. 

The friendly movers sat upright on the floor, panting and eyeing 
one another, after Mr. Boffin had slammed the gate and gone away. 
In the weak eyes of Venus, and in eveiy reddish dust-coloured hair 
in his shock of hair, there was a marked distrust of Wegg and an 
alertness to fly at him on perceiving the smallest occasion. In the 
hard-grained face of Wegg, and in his stiff knotty figure (he looked 
like a German wooden toy), there was expressed a politic concilia- 
tion, which had no spontaneity in it. Both were flushed, flustered, 
and rumpled, by the late scufile ; and Wegg, in coming to the 
ground, had received a humming knock on the back of his devoted 
head, which caused him still to rub it with an air of having been 
highly — but disagreeably — astonished. Each was silent for some 
time, leaving it to the other to begin. 



472 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Brother," said Wegg, at length breaking the silence, "you were 
right, and I was wrong. I forgot myself." 

Mr. Venus knowingly cocked his shock of hair, as rather thinking 
Mr. Wegg had remembered himself, in respect of ajipearing without 
any disguise. 

"But, comrade," pursued Wegg, "it was never your lot to know 
Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, nor Uncle Parker." 

Mr. Venus admitted that he had never known those distinguished 
persons, and added, in effect, that he had never so much as desired 
the honour of their acquaintance. 

" Don't say that, comrade," retorted Wegg : " No, don't say that ! 
Because, without having known them, you never can fully know 
what it is to be stimulated to frenzy by the sight of the Usurper." 

Offering these excusatory words as if they reflected great credit on 
himself, Mr. Wegg impelled himself with his hands towards a chair 
in a corner of the room, and there, after a variety of awkward gam- 
bols, attained a perpendicular position. Mr. Venus also rose. 

" Comrade," said Wegg, " take a seat. Comrade, what a speaking 
countenance is yours ! " 

Mr. Venus involuntarily smoothed his countenance, and looked 
at his hand, as if to see whether any of its speaking properties 
came off. 

"For clearly do I know, mark you," pursued Wegg, pointing 
his words with his forefinger, " clearly do I know what question 
your expressive features puts to me." 

" What question ? " said Venus. 

"The question," returned Wegg, with a sort of joyful affability, 
" why I didn't mention sooner that I had found something. Says 
your speaking countenance to me : ' Why didn't you communicate 
that when I first come in this evening ? Why did you keep it back 
till you thought Mr. Boffin had come to look for the article ? ' 
Your speaking countenance," said Wegg, "puts it plainer than 
language. Now, you can't read in my face what answer I give?" 

"No, I can't," said Venus. 

" I knew it ! And why not ? " returned Wegg, with the same 
joyful candour. " Because I lay no claims to a speaking counte- 
nance. Because I am well aware of my deficiencies. All men are 
not gifted alike. But I can answer in words. And in what words 1 
These. I wanted to give you a delightful sap — pur — ize ! " 

Having thus elongated and emphasised the word Surprise, Mr. 
Wegg shook his friend and brother by both hands, and then clapped 
him on both knees, like an affectionate patron who entreated him 
not to mention so small a service as that which it had been his 
happy privilege to render. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 473 

"Your speaking countenance," said Wegg, "being answered to 
its satisfaction, only asks then, ' What have you found 1 ' Why, I 
hear it say the words ! " 

" Well ? " retorted Venus, snappishly, after waiting in vain. 
" If you hear it say the words, why don't you answer it 1 " 

" Hear me out ! " said Wegg. " I'm a going to. Hear me out ! 
Man and brother, partner in feelings equally with undertakings and 
actions, I have found a cash-box." 

"Where?" 

" Hear me out ! " said Wegg. (He tried to reserve whatever 

he could, and, whenever disclosure was forced upon him, broke 
into a radiant gush of Hear me out.) " On a certain day, sir " 

" When 1 " said Venus, bluntly. 

«I^ — no," returned Wegg, shaking his head at once observantly, 
thoughtfully, and playfully. " No, sir ! That's not your expres- 
sive countenance which asks that question. That's your voice; 
merely your voice. To proceed. On a certain day, sir, I happened 
to be walking in the yard — taking my lonely round — for in the 
words of a friend of my own family, the author of All's Well 
arranged as a duett : 

* Deserted, as you will remember, Mr, Venus, by tlie waning moon. 
When stars, it will occur to you before I mention it, proclaim night's 

cheerless noon, 
On tower, fort, or tented ground, 
The sentry walks his lonely round. 
The sentry walks ; ' 

— under those circumstances, sir, I happened to be walking in the 
yard early one afternoon, and happened to have an iron rod in my 
hand, with which I have been sometimes accustomed to beguile 
the monotony of a literary life, when I struck it against an object 
not necessary to trouble you by naming " 

" It is necessary. What object 1 " demanded Venus, in a wrath- 
ful tone. 

" Hear me out ! " said Wegg. " The Pump. — When I struck 
it against the Pump, and found, not only that the top was loose 
and opened with a lid, but that something in it rattled. That 
something, comrade, I discovered to be a small flat oblong cash-box. 
Shall I say it was disappintingly light ? " 

" There were papers in it 1 " said Venus. 

" There your expressive countenance speaks indeed ! " cried Wegg. 
" A paper. The box was locked, tied up, and sealed, and on the 
outside was a parchment label, with the writing, ' my will, john 

HARMON, TEMPORARILY DEPOSITED HERE.' " 

" We must know its contents," said Venus. 



474 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" — Hear me out ! " cried Wegg. " I said so, and I broke the 
box open." 

" Without coming to me ! " exclaimed Venus. 

" Exactly so, sir ! " returned Wegg, blandly and buoyantly. " I 
see I take you with me ! Hear, hear, hear ! Resolved, as your 
discriminating good sense perceives, that if you was to have a 
sap — pur — IZE, it should be a complete one ! Well, sir. And so, 
as you have honoured me by anticipating, I examined the document. 
Regularly executed, regularly witnessed, very short. Inasmuch as 
he has never made friends, and has ever had a rebellious family, 
he, John Harmon, gives to Nicodemus Boffin the Little Mound, 
which is quite enough for him, and gives the whole rest and residue 
of his property to the Crown." 

" The date of the will that has been proved must be looked to," 
remarked Venus. " It may be later than this one." 

" Hear me out ! " cried Wegg. " I said so. I paid a shilling 
(never mind your sixpence of it) to look up that will. Brother, 
that will is dated months before this will. And now, as a fellow- 
man, and as a partner in a friendly move," added Wegg, benig- 
nantly taking him by both hands again, and clapping him on both 
knees again, "say, have I completed my labour of love to your 
perfect satisfaction, and are you sap — pur — ized ? " 

Mr. Venus contemplated his fellow-man and partner with doubt- 
ing eyes, and then rejoined stiffly : 

" This is great news indeed, Mr. AVegg. There's no denying it. 
But I could have wished you had told it me before you got your 
fright to-night, and I could have wished you had ever asked me as 
your partner what we were to do, before you thought you were 
dividing a responsibility." 

" — Hear me out!" cried Wegg. "I knew you was a going 
to say so. But alone I bore the anxiety, and alone I'll bear the 
blame ! " This with an air of great magnanimity. 

"Now," said Venus. "Let's see this will and this box." 

"Do I understand, brother," returned Wegg with considerable 
reluctance, " that it is your wish to see this will and this ? " 

Mr. Venus smote the table with his hand. 

" — Hear me out ! " said Wegg. " Hear me out ! I'll go and 
fetch 'em." 

After being some time absent, as if in his covetousness he could 
hardly make up his mind to produce the treasure to his partner, 
he returned with an old leathern hat-box, into which he had put 
the other box, for the better preservation of commonplace appear- 
ances, and for the disarming of suspicion. " But I don't half like 
opening it here," said Silas in a low voice, looking around : "he 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 475 

might come back, he may not be gone ; we don't know what he 
may be up to, after what we've seen." 

"There's somethnig m that," assented Venus. "Come to my 
place." 

Jealous of the custody of the box, and yet fearful of opening 
it under the existing circumstances, Wegg hesitated. "Come, I 
tell you," repeated Venus, chafing, "to my place." Not very well 
seeing his way to a refusal, Mr. Wegg then rejoined in a gush, 
" — Hear me out ! — Certainly." So he locked up the Bower and 
they set forth : Mr. Venus taking his arm, and keeping it with 
remarkable tenacity. 

They found the usual dim light burning in the window of Mr. 
Venus's establishment, imperfectly disclosing to the public the 
usual pair of preserved frogs, sword in hand, with their point of 
honour still unsettled. Mr. Venus had closed his shop door on 
coming out, and now opened it with the key and shut it again as 
soon as they were within ; but not before he had put up and barred 
the shutters of the shop window. "No one can get in without 
being let in," said he then, "and we couldn't be more snug than 
here." So he raked together the yet warm cinders in the rusty 
grate, and made a fire, and trimmed the candle on the little counter. 
As the fire cast its flickering gleams here and there upon the dark 
greasy walls, the Hindoo baby, the African baby, the articulated 
English baby, the assortment of skulls, and the rest of the collec- 
tion came starting to their various stations as if they had all been 
out, like their master, and were punctual in a general rendezvous 
to assist at the secret. The French gentleman had grown consider- 
ably since Mr. Wegg last saw him, being now accommodated with 
a pair of legs and a head, though his arms were yet in abeyance. 
To whomsoever the head had originally belonged, Silas Wegg 
would have regarded it as a personal favour if he had not cut 
quite so many teeth. 

Silas took his seat in silence on the wooden box before the fire, 
and Venus dropping into his low chair, produced from among his 
skeleton hands, his tea-tray and teacups, and put the kettle on. 
Silas inwardly approved of these preparations, trusting they might 
end in Mr. Venus's diluting his intellect. 

" Now, sir," said Venus, "all is safe and quiet. Let us see this 
discovery." 

With still reluctant hands, and not without several glances 
towards the skeleton hands, as if he mistrusted that a couple of 
them might spring forth and clutch the document, Wegg opened 
the hat-box and revealed the cash-box, opened the cash-box and 
revealed the will. He held a corner of it tight, while Venus, 



476 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

taking hold of another corner, search! ngly and attentively read 
it. 

" Was I correct in my account of it, partner 1 " said Mr. Wegg, 
at length. 

" Partner, you were," said Mr. Venus. 

Mr. Wegg thereupon made an easy, graceful movement, as 
though he would fold it up ; but Mr. Venus held on by his corner. 

"No, sir," said Mr. Venus, winking his weak eyes and shaking 
his head. " No, partner. The question is now brought up, who 
is going to take care of this. Do you know who is going to take 
care of this, partner 1 " 

" I am," said Wegg. 

"Oh dear no, partner," retorted Venus. "That's a mistake. 
/ am. Now look here, Mr. Wegg. I don't want to have any 
words with you, and still less do I want to have any anatomical 
pursuits with you." 

" What do you mean 1 " said Wegg, quickly. 

"I mean, partner," replied Venus, slowly, "that it's hardly pos- 
sible for a man to feel in a more amiable state towards another 
man than I do towards you at this present moment. But I am on 
my own ground, I am surrounded by the trophies of my art, and 
my tools is very handy." 

" What do you mean, Mr. Venus 1 " asked Wegg again. 

" I am surrounded, as I have observed," said Mr. Venus, plac- 
idly, " by the trophies of my art. They are numerous, my stock 
of human warious is large, the shop is pretty well crammed, and I 
don't just now want any more trophies of my art. But I like my 
art, and I know how to exercise my art." 

" No man better," assented Mr. Wegg, with a somewhat stag- 
gered air. 

" There's the Miscellanies of several human specimens," said 
Venus, " (though you mightn't think it,) in the box on which 
you're sitting. There's the Miscellanies of several human speci- 
mens in the lovely compo-one behind the door ; " with a nod 
towards the French gentleman. " It still wants a pair of arms. 
I dori't say that I'm in any hurry for 'em." 

" You must be wandering in your mind, partner," Silas remon- 
strated. 

"You'll excuse me if I wander," returned Venus; "I am some- 
times rather subject to it. I like my art, and I know how to 
exercise my art, and I mean to have the keeping of this document." 

" But what has that got to do with your art, partner ? " asked 
Wegg, in an insinuating tone. 

Mr. Venus winked his chronically-fatigued eyes both at once, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 477 

and adjusting the kettle on the fire, remarked to himself, in a hol- 
low voice, " She'll bile in a couple of minutes." 

Silas Wegg glanced at the kettle, glanced at the shelves, glanced 
at the French gentleman behind the door, and shrank a little as 
he glanced at Mr. Venus winking his red eyes, and feeling in his 
waistcoat pocket — as for a lancet, say — mth his unoccupied 
hand. He and Venus were necessarily seated close together, as 
each held a corner of the document, which was but a common 
sheet of paper. 

" Partner," said Wegg, even more insinuatingly than before, " I 
propose that we cut it in half, and each keep a half." 

Venus shook his shock of hair, as he replied, " It wouldn't do 
to mutilate it, partner. It might seem to be cancelled." 

" Partner," said Wegg, after a silence, during which they had 
contemplated one another, " don't your speaking countenance say 
that you're a going to suggest a middle course 1 " 

Venus shook his shock of hair, as he replied, " Partner, you 
have kept this paper from me once. You shall never keep it from 
me again. I offer you the box and the label to take care of, but 
I'll take care of the paper." 

Silas hesitated a little longer, and then suddenly releasing his 
corner, and resuming his buoyant and benignant tone, exclaimed, 
" What's life without trustfulness ! What's a fellow-man without 
honour ! You're welcome to it, partner, in a spirit of trust and 
confidence." 

Continuing to wink his red eyes both together — but in a self- 
communing way, and without any show of triumph — Mr. Venus 
folded the paper now left in his hand, and locked it in a drawer 
behind him, and pocketed the key. He then proposed, " A cup of 
tea, partner?" To which Mr. Wegg returned, "Thank'ee, part- 
ner," and the tea was made and poured out. 

"Next," said Venus, blowing at his tea in his saucer, and look- 
ing over it at his confidential friend, " comes the question. What's 
the course to be pursued 1 " 

On this head, Silas Wegg had much to say. Silas had to say 
That, he would beg to remind his comrade, brother, and partner, 
of the impressive passages they had read that evening; of 
the evident parallel in Mr. Boffin's mind between them and the 
late owner of the Bower, and the present circumstances of the 
Bower ; of the bottle ; and of the box. That, the fortunes of his 
brother and comrade, and of himself, were evidently made, inas- 
much as they had but to put their price upon this document, and 
get that price from the minion of fortune and the worm of the 
hour : who now appeared to be less of a minion and more of a 



478 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

worm than had been previously supposed. That, he considered it 
plain that such price was stateable in a single expressive word, and 
that word was, " Halves ! " That, the question then arose when 
" Halves ! " should be called. That, here he had a plan of action 
to recommend, with a conditional clause. That, the plan of action 
was that they should lie by with patience ; that they should allow 
the Mounds to be gradually levelled and cleared away, while 
retaining to themselves their present opportunity of watching the 
process — which would be, he conceived, to put the trouble and 
cost of daily digging and delving upon somebody else, while they 
might nightly turn such complete disturbance of the dust to the 
account of their own private investigations ; and that, when the 
Mounds were gone, and they had worked those chances for their 
own joint benefit solely, they should then, and not before, explode 
on the minion and worm. But here came the conditional clause, 
and to this he entreated the special attention of his comrade, 
brother, and partner. It was not to be borne that the minion and 
worm should carry off any of that property which was now to be 
regarded as their own property. When he, Mr. Wegg, had seen 
the minion surreptitiously making off with that bottle, and its 
precious contents unknown, he had looked upon him in the light 
of a mere robber, and, as such, would have despoiled him of his 
ill-gotten gain, but for the judicious interference of his comrade, 
brother, and partner. Therefore, the conditional clause he pro- 
posed was, that, if the minion should return in his late sneaking 
manner, and if, being closely watched, he should be found to 
possess himself of anything, no matter what, the sharp sword 
impending over his head should be instantly shown him, he should 
be strictly examined as to what he knew or suspected, should be 
severely handled by them his masters, and should be kept in a 
state of abject moral bondage and slavery until the time when 
they should see fit to permit him to purchase his freedom at the 
price of half his possessions. If, said Mr. Wegg by way of 
peroration, he had erred in saying only "Halves !" he trusted to his 
comrade, brother, and partner not to hesitate to set him right, and 
to reprove his weakness. It might be more according to the rights 
of things, to say Two-thirds ; it might be more according to the 
rights of things, to say Three-fourths. On those points he was 
ever open to correction. 

Mr. Venus, having wafted his attention to this discourse over 
three successive saucers of tea, signified his concurrence in the 
views advanced. Inspirited hereby, Mr. Wegg extended his right 
hand, and declared it to be a hand which never yet. Without 
entering into more minute particidnrs. Mr. Venus, sticking to his 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 479 

tea, briefly professed his belief, as polite forms required of him, 
that it was a hand which never yet. But contented himself with 
looking at it, and did not take it to his bosom. 

" Brother," said Wegg, when this happy understanding was 
established, " I should like to ask you something. You remember 
the night when I first looked in here, and found you floating your 
powerful mind in tea 1 " 

Still swilling tea, Mr. Venus nodded assent. 

" And there you sit, sir," pursued Wegg with an air of thought- 
ful admiration, "as if you had never left off"! There you sit, sir, 
as if you had an unlimited capacity of assimilating the flagrant 
article ! There you sit, sir, in the midst of your works, looking as 
if you'd been called upon for Home, Sweet Home, and was obleeg- 
ing the company ! 

' A exile from home splendour dazzles in vain, 
give you your lowly Preparations again,- 
The birds stuffed so sweetly that can't be expected to come at your 

call, 
Give you these with the peace of mind dearer than all. 
Home, Home, Home, sweet Home ! ' 

— Be it ever," added Mr. Wegg in prose as he glanced about the 
shop, " ever so ghastly, all things considered there's no place like 
it." 

" You said you'd like to ask something ; but you haven't asked 
it," remarked Venus, very unsympathetic in manner. 

"Your peace of mind," said Wegg, offering condolence, "your 
peace of mind was in a poor way that night. How's it going on ? 
Is it looking up at all % " 

" She does not wish," replied Mr. Venus with a comical mixture 
of indignant obstinacy and tender melancholy, " to regard herself, 
nor yet to be regarded, in that particular light. There's no more 
to be said." 

"Ah, dear me, dear me ! " exclaimed Wegg with a sigh, but eye- 
ing him while pretending to keep him company in eyeing the fire, 
" such is woman ! And I remember you said that night, sitting 
there as I sat here — said that night when your peace of mind was 
first laid low, that you had taken an interest in these very affairs. 
Such is coincidence ! " 

"Her father," rejoined Venus, and then stopped to swallow 
more tea, "her father was mixed up in them." 

"You didn't mention her name, sir, I think?" observed Wegg, 
pensively. " No, you didn't mention her name that night." 

" Pleasant Riderhood." 

" In — deed ! " cried Wegg. " Pleasant Riderhood. There's 



480 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

something moving in tlie name. Pleasant. Dear me ! Seems to 
express what she might have been, if she hadn't made that un- 
pleasant remark — and what she ain't, in consequence of having 
made it. Would it at all pour balm into your wounds, Mr. Venus, 
to inquire how you came acquainted with her 1 " 

"I was down at the water-side," said Venus, taking another 
gulp of tea and mournfully winking at the fire — " looking for par- 
rots " — taking another gulp and stopping. 

Mr. Wegg hinted, to jog his attention: "You could hardly 
have been out parrot-shooting, in the British climate, sir?" 

" No, no, no," said Venus fretfully. " I was down at the 
water-side, looking for parrots brought home by sailors, to buy for 
stuffing." 

"Ay, ay, ay, sir!" 

" — And looking for a nice pair of rattlesnakes, to articulate for 
a Museum — when I was doomed to fall in with her and deal with 
her. It was just at the time of that discovery in the river. Her 
father had seen the discovery being towed in the river. I made 
the popularity of the subject a reason for going back to improve 
the acquaintance, and I have never since been the man I was. 
My very bones is rendered flabby by brooding over it. If they 
could be brought to me loose, to sort, I should hardly have the 
face to claim 'em as mine. To such an extent have I fallen oft' 
under it." 

Mr. Wegg, less interested than he had been, glanced at one par- 
ticular shelf in the dark. 

" Why I remember, Mr. Venus," he said in a tone of friendly 
commiseration " (for I remember every word that falls from you, 
sir), I remember that you said that night, you had got up there — 
and then your words was, ' Never mind.' " 

" — The parrot that I bought of her," said Venus, with a de- 
spondent rise and fall of his eyes. "Yes ; there it lies on its side, 
dried up ; except for its plumage, very like myself I've never 
had the heart to prepare it, and I never shall have now." 

With a disappointed face, Silas mentally consigned this parrot 
to regions more than tropical, and, seeming for the time to have 
lost his power of assuming an interest in the woes of Mr. Venus, 
fell to tightening his wooden leg as a preparation for departure : its 
gymnastic performances of that evening having severely tried its 
constitution. 

After Silas had left the shop, hat-box in hand, and had left Mr. 
Venus to lower himself to oblivion-point with the requisite weight 
of tea, it greatly preyed on his ingenuous mind that he had taken 
this artist into partnership at all. He bitterly felt that he had over- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 481 

reached himself in the beginning, by grasping at Mr. Venus's mere 
straws of hints, now shown to be worthless for his purpose. Cast- 
ing about for ways and means of dissolving the connection with- 
out loss of money, reproaching himself for having been betrayed 
into an avowal of his secret, and complimenting himself beyond 
measure on his purely accidental good luck, he beguiled the dis- 
tance between Clerkenwell and the mansion of the Golden Dust- 
man. 

For, Silas Wegg felt it to be quite out of the question that he 
could lay his head upon his pillow in peace, without first hovering 
over Mr. Boffin's house in the superior character of its Evil Genius. 
Power (unless it be the power of intellect or virtue) has ever the 
greatest attraction for the lowest natures ; and the mere defiance 
of the unconscious house-front, with his power to strip the roof off 
the inhabiting family like the roof of a house of cards, was a treat 
which had a charm for Silas Wegg. 

As he hovered on the opposite side of the street, exulting, the 
carriage drove up. 

" There'll shortly be an end of ^^ow," said Wegg, threatening it 
with the hat-box. " Your varnish is fading." 

Mrs. Boffin descended and went in. 

" Look out for a fall, my Lady Dust woman," said Wegg. 

Bella lightly descended and ran in after her. 

"How brisk we are !" said Wegg. "You won't run so gaily 
to your old shabby home, my girl. You'll have to go there, 
though." 

A little while, and the Secretary came out. 

"I was passed over for you," said Wegg. "But you had 
better provide yourself with another situation, young man." 

Mr. Boffin's shadow passed upon the blinds of three large 
windows as he trotted down the room, and passed again as he 
went back. 

"Yoop!" cried Wegg. "You're there, are you? Where's 
the bottle? You would give your bottle for my box, Dust- 
man ! " 

Having now composed his mind for slumber, he turned home- 
ward. Such was the greed of the fellow, that his mind had 
shot beyond halves, two-thirds, three-fourths, and gone straight 
to spoliation of the whole. "Though that wouldn't quite do," 
he considered, growing cooler as he got away. " That's what 
would happen to him if he didn't buy us up. We should get 
nothing by that." 

We so judge others by ourselves, that it had never come into 
his head before, that he might not buy us up, and might prove 

2i 




THE EVIL GENIUS OF THE HOUSE OF BOFFIN. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 483 

honest, and prefer to be poor. It caused him a slight tremor 
as it passed ; but a very slight one, for the idle thought was 
gone directly, 

" He's grown too fond of rxioney for that," said Wegg ; " he's 
grown too fond of money." The burden fell into a strain or tune 
as he stumped along the pavements. All the way home he 
stumped it out of the rattling streets, piano with his own foot, 
and t'o7'te with his wooden leg, " He's grown too fond of money 
for THAT, he's grown too fond of money." 

Even next day Silas soothed himself with this melodious strain, 
when he was called out of bed at daybreak, to set open the 
yard-gate and admit the train of carts and horses that came to 
carry off the little Mound. And all day long, as he kept un- 
winking watch on the slow process which promised to protract 
itself through many days and weeks, whenever (to save himself 
from being choked with dust) he patrolled a little cinderous beat 
he established for the purpose, without taking his eyes from the 
diggers, he still stumped to the tune : " He's grown too fond of 

money for THAT, he's grown too fond of MONEY." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY. 

The train of carts and horses came and went all day from 
dawn to nightfall, making little or no daily impression on the 
heap of ashes, though, as the days passed on, the heap was seen 
to be slowly melting. My lords and gentlemen and honourable 
boards, when you in the course of your dust-shovelling and cinder- 
raking have piled up a mountain of pretentious failure, you must 
off with your honourable coats for the removal of it, and fall to 
the work with the power of all the queen's horses and all 
the queen's men, or it will come rushing down and bury us 
alive. 

Yes, verily, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, 
adapting your Catechism to the occasion, and by God's help so 
you must. For when we have got things to the pass that with 
an enormous treasure at disposal to relieve the poor, the best of 
the poor detest our mercies, hide their heads from us, and shame 
us by starving to death in the midst of us, it is a pass impos- 
sible of prosperity, impossible of continuance. It may not be 
so written in the Gospel according to Podsnappery; you may 
not " find these words " for the text of a sermon, in the Returns 



484 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

of the Board of Trade; but they have been the truth since 
the foundations of the universe were laid, and they will bo the 
truth until the foundations of the universe are shaken by the 
Builder. This boastful handiwork of ours, which fails in its terrors 
for the professional pauper, the sturdy breaker of windows and 
the rampant tearer of clothes, strikes with a cruel and a wicked 
stab at the stricken sufferer, and is a horror to the deserving 
and unfortunate. We must mend it, lords and gentlemen and 
honourable boards, or in its own evil hour it will mar every one 
of us. 

Old Betty Higden fared upon her pilgrimage as many ruggedly 
honest creatures, women and men, fare on their toiling way along 
the roads of life. Patiently to earn a spare bare living, and quietly 
to die, untouched by workhouse hands — this w^as her highest sub- 
lunary hope. 

Nothing had been heard of her at Mr. Boffin's house since she 
trudged off. The weather had been hard and the roads had been 
bad, and her spirit was up. A less stanch spirit might have been 
subdued by such adverse influences ; but the loan for her little 
outfit was in no part repaid, and it had gone worse with her than 
she had foreseen, and she was put upon proving her case and main- 
taining her independence. 

Faithful soul ! When she had spoken to the Secretary of that 
"deadness that steals over me at times," her fortitude had made 
too little of it. Oftener and ever oftener, it came stealing over her ; 
darker and ever darker, like the shadow of advancing Death. That 
the shadow should be deep as it came on, like the shadow of an 
actual presence, was in accordance with the laws of the physical 
world, for all the Light that shone on Betty Higden lay beyond 
Death. 

The poor old creature had taken the upward course of the river 
Thames as her general track ; it was the track in which her last 
home lay, and of which she had last had local love and knowledge. 
She had hovered for a little while in the near neighbourhood of her 
abandoned dwelling, and had sold, and knitted and sold, and gone 
on. In the pleasant towns of Chertsey, Walton, Kingston, and 
Staines, her figure came to be quite well known for some short 
weeks, and then again passed on. 

She would take her stand in market-places, where there were 
such things, on market days ; at other times, in the busiest (that 
was seldom very busy) portion of the little quiet High Street ; at 
still other times she would explore the outlying roads for great 
houses, and would ask leave at the Lodge to pass in with her 
basket, and would not often get it. But ladies in carriages would 



OUR «MUTUAL FRIEND. 485 

frequently make purchases from her trifling stock, and were usu- 
ally pleased with her bright eyes and her hopeful speech. In these 
and her clean dress originated a fable that she was well to do in 
the world : one might say, for her station, rich. As making a 
comfortable provision for its subject which costs nobody anything, 
this class of fable has long been popular. 

In those pleasant little towns on Thames, you may hear the 
fall of the water over the weirs, or even, in still weather, the 
rustle of the rushes ; and from the bridge you may see the young 
river, dimpled like a young child, playfully gliding away among the 
trees, unpolluted by the defilements that lie in wait for it on its 
course, and as yet out of hearing of the deep summons of the sea. 
It were too much to pretend that Betty Higden made out such 
thoughts ; no ; but she heard the tender river whispering to many 
like herself, " Come to me, come to me ! When the cruel shame 
and terror you have so long fled from, most beset you, come to me ! 
I am the Relieving Officer appointed by eternal ordinance to do my 
work ; I am not held in estimation according as I shirk it. My 
breast is softer than the pauper-nurse's ; death in my arms is peace- 
fuller than among the pauper- wards. Come to me ! " 

There was abundant place for gentler fancies, too, in her untu- 
tored mind. Those gentlefolks and their children inside those fine 
houses, could they think, as they looked out at her, what it was to be 
really hungry, really cold ? Did they feel any of the wonder about 
her, that she felt about them ? Bless the dear laughing children ! 
If they could have seen sick Johnny in her arms, would they have 
cried for pity 1 If they could have seen dead Johnny on that little 
bed, would they have understood it 1 Bless the dear children for 
his sake, anyhow ! So with the humbler houses in the little street, 
the inner firelight shining on the panes as the outer twilight 
darkened. When the families gathered in-doors there, for the 
night, it was only a foolish fancy to feel as if it were a little hard 
in them to close the shutter and blacken the flame. So with the 
lighted shops, and speculations whether their masters and mistresses 
taking tea in a perspective of back parlour — not so far within but 
that the flavour of tea and toast came out, mingled with the glow 
of light, into the street — ate or drank or wore what they sold, 
with the greater relish because they dealt in it. So with the 
churchyard on a branch of the solitary way to the night's sleeping- 
place. " Ah me ! The dead and I seem to have it pretty much to 
ourselves in the dark and in this weather ! But so much the 
better for all who are warmly housed at home." The poor soul 
envied no one in bitterness, and grudged no one anything. 

But the old abhorrence grew stronger on her as she grew weaker, 



486 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

and it found more sustaining food than she did in her wanderings. 
Now, she would light uj^on the shameful spectacle of some deso- 
late creature — or some wretched ragged groups of either sex, or 
of both sexes, with children among them, huddled together like the 
smaller vermin, for a little warmth — lingering and lingering on a 
doorstep, while the appointed evader of the public trust did his 
dirty office of trying to weary them out and so get rid of them. 
Now, she would light upon some poor decent person, like herself, 
going afoot on a pilgrimage of many weary miles to see some worn- 
out relative or friend who had been charitably clutched off to a 
great blank barren Union House, as far from old home as the 
County Jail (the remoteness of which is always its worst punish- 
ment for small rural offenders), and in its dietary, and in its lodg- 
ing, and in its tending of the sick, a much more penal establishment. 
Sometimes she would hear a newspaper read out, and would learn 
how the Registrar General cast up the units that had within the 
last week died of want and of exposure to the weather : for which 
that Recording Angel seemed to have a regular fixed place in his 
sum, as if they were its half-pence. All such things she would 
hear discussed, as we, my lords and gentlemen and honourable 
boards, in our unapproachable magnificence never hear them, and 
from all such things she would fly with the wings of raging Despair. 

This is not to be received as a figure of speech. Old Betty 
Higden, however tired, however footsore, would start up and be 
driven away by her awakened horror of falling into the hands of 
Charity. It is a remarkable Christian improvement, to have made 
a i^ursuing Fuiy of the Good Samaritan ; but it was so in this 
case, and it is a type of many, many, many. 

Two incidents united to intensify the old unreasoning abhorrence 
— granted in a previous place to be unreasoning, because the peo- 
ple always are unreasoning, and invariably make a point of pro- 
ducing all their smoke without fire. 

One day she was sitting in a market-place on a bench outside an 
inn, with her little wares for sale, when the deadness that she 
strove against came over her so heavily that the scene departed 
from before her eyes ; when it returned, she found herself on the 
ground, her head supported by some good-natured market-women, 
and a little crowd about her. 

"Are you better now, mother?" asked one of the women. 
"Do you think you can do nicely now?" 

" Have I been ill then ? " asked old Betty. 

" You have had a faint like," was the answer, "or a fit. It 
ain't that you've been astruggling, mother, but you've been stiff 
and numbed." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 487 

"Ah! "said Betty, recovering her memory. "It's the numb- 
ness. Yes. It comes over me at times." 

Was it gone ? the women asked her. 

"It's gone now," said Betty. " I shall be stronger than I was 
afore. Many thanks to ye, my dears, and when you come to be as 
old as I am, may others do as much for you ! " 

They assisted her to rise, but she could not stand yet, and they 
supported her when she sat down again ujDon the bench. 

" My head's a bit light, and my feet are a bit heavy," said old 
Betty, leaning her face drowsily on the breast of the woman who 
had spoken before. " They'll both come nat'ral in a minute. 
There's nothing more the matter." 

"Ask her," said some farmers standing by, who had come out 
from their market-dinner, "who belongs to her." 

" Are there any folks belonging to you, mother ? " said the 
woman. 

"Yes sure," answered Betty. "I heerd the gentleman say it, 
but I couldn't answer quick enough. There's plenty belonging to 
me. Don't ye fear for me, my dear." 

" But are any of 'em near here ? " said the men's voices ; the 
women's voices chiming in when it was said, and prolonging the 
strain. 

" Quite near enough," said Betty, rousing herself " Don't ye 
be afeard for me, neighbours." 

"But you are not fit to travel. Where are you going?" was 
the next compassionate chorus she heard. 

"I'm a going to London, when I've sold out all," said Betty, 
rising with difficulty. " I've right good friends in London. I 
want for nothing. I shall come to no harm. Thankye. Don't ye 
be afeard for me." 

A well-meaning bystander, yellow-legginged and purple-faced, 
said hoarsely over his red comforter, as she rose to her feet, that she 
"oughtn't to be let to go." 

" For the Lord's love don't meddle with me ! " cried old Betty, 
all her fears crowding on her. " I am quite well now, and I must 
go this minute." 

She caught up her basket as she spoke and was making an 
unsteady rush away from them, when the same bystander checked 
her with his hand on her sleeve, and urged her to come with him 
and see the parish-doctor. Strengthening herself by the utmost 
exercise of her resolution, the poor trembling creature shook him 
off, almost fiercely, and took to flight. Nor did she feel safe until 
she had set a mile or two of by-road between herself and the 
market-place, and had crept into a copse, like a hunted animal, to 



488 OUK MUTUAL FRIEND. 

hide and recover breath. Not until then for the first time did 
she venture to recall how she had looked over her shoulder before 
turning out of the town, and had seen the sign of the White Lion 
hanging across the road, and the fluttering market booths, and the 
old grey church, and the little crowed gazing after her but not 
attempting to follow her. 

The second frightening incident was this. She had been again 
as bad, and had been for some days better, and was travelling 
along by a part of the road where it touched the river, and in wet 
seasons was so often overflowed by it that there were tall white 
posts set up to mark the way. A barge was being towed towards 
her, and she sat down on the bank to rest and watch it. As the 
tow-rope was slackened by a turn of the stream and dipped into 
the water, such a confusion stole into her mind that she thought 
she saw the forms of her dead children and dead grandchildren 
peopling the barge, and waving their hands to her in solemn 
measure; then as the rope tightened and came up, dropping 
diamonds, it seemed to vibrate into two parallel ropes and strike 
her, with a twang, though it was far off". When she looked again 
there was no barge, no river, no daylight, and a man whom she 
bad never before seen held a candle close to her face. 

" Now, Missis," said he ; " where did you come from and where 
are you going to ? " 

The poor soul confusedly asked the counter-question where she 
was? 

" I am the Lock," said the man. 

"The Lock?" 

"I am the Deputy Lock, on job, and this is the Lock-house. 
(Lock or Deputy Lock, it's all one, while the t'other man's in the 
hospital.) What's your Parish ? " 

" Parish ! " She was up from the truckle-bed directly, wildly 
feeling about her for her basket, and gazing at him in afiright. 

"You'll be asked the question down town," said the man. 
" They won't let you be more than a Casual there. They'll pass 
you on to your settlement. Missis, with all speed. You're not in 
a state to be let come upon strange parishes 'ceptin as a Casual." 

" 'Twas the deadness again ! " murmured Betty Higden, with her 
hand to her head. 

"It was the deadness, there's not a doubt about it," returned 
the man. " I should have thought the deadness was a mild word 
for it, if it had been named to me when we brought you in. Have 
you got any friends, Missis ? " 

" The best of friends, Master." 

" I should recommend your looking 'em up if you consider 'em 



'^mmmif 




'My^' 



490 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

game to do anything for you," said the Deputy Lock. " Have you 
got any money 1 " 

" Just a morsel of money, sir." 

" Do you want to keep it ? " 

" Sure I do ! " 

" Well, you know," said the Deputy Lock, shrugging his shoulders 
with his hands in his pockets, and shaking his head in a sulkily 
ominous manner, " the parish authorities down town will have it 
out of you, if you go on, you may take your Alfred David." 

" Then I'll not go on." 

"They'll make you pay, as fur as your money will go," pursued 
the Deputy, " for your relief as a Casual and for your being passed 
to your Parish." 

"Thankye kindly. Master, for your warning, thankye for your 
shelter, and good-night." 

"Stop a bit," said the Deputy, striking in between her and the 
door. "Why are you all of a shake, and what's your hurry, 
Missis?" 

"Oh, Master, Master," returned Betty Higden, "I've fought 
against the Parish and fled from it, all my life, and I want to die 
free of it ! " 

"I don't know," said the Deputy, with deliberation, "as I ought 
to let you go. I'm a honest man as gets my living by the sweat 
of my brow, and I may fall into trouble by letting you go. I've 
fell into trouble afore now, by George, and I know what it is, and 
it's made me careful. You might be took with your deadness 
again, half a mile off — or half of half a quarter for the matter of 
that — and then it would be asked, Why did that there honest 
Deputy Lock let her go, instead of putting her safe with the 
Parish ? That's what a' man of his character ought to have done, 
it would be argueyfied," said the Deputy Lock, cunningly harping 
on the strong string of her terror ; " he ought to have handed her 
over safe to the Parish. That was to be expected of a man of his 
merits." 

As he stood in the doorway, the poor old careworn wayworn 
woman burst into tears, and clasped her hands, as if in a very 
agony she prayed to him. 

"As I've told you, Master, I've the best of friends. This 
letter will show how true I spoke, and they will be thankful 
for me." 

The Deputy Lock opened the letter with a grave face, which 
underwent no change as he eyed its contents. But it might have 
done, if he could have read them. 

"What amount of small change, Missis," he said with an 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 491 

abstracted air, after a little meditation, " might you call a morsel 
of money 1 " 

Hurriedly emptying her pocket, old Betty laid down on the 
table, a shilling and two sixpenny pieces, and a few pence. 

" If I was to let you go instead of handing you over safe to the 
Parish," said the Deputy, counting the money with his eyes, 
" might it be your own free wish to leave that there behind you ? " 

"Take it, Master, take it, and welcome and thankful ! " 

"I'm a man," said the Deputy, giving her back the letter, and 
pocketing the coins, one by one, "as earns his living by the sweat 
of his brow ; " here he drew his sleeve across his forehead, as if 
this particular portion of his humble gains were the result of sheer 
hard labour and virtuous industry; "and I won't stand in your 
way. Go where you like." 

She was gone out of the Lock-house as soon as he gave her this 
permission, and her tottering steps were on the road again. But, 
afraid to go back and afraid to go forward ; seeing what she fled 
from, in the sky-glare of the lights of the little town before her, 
and lea\ing a confused horror of it everywhere behind her, as if 
she had escaped it in every stone of every market-place ; she struck 
oft' by side ways, among which she got bewildered and lost. That 
night she took refuge from the Samaritan in his latest accredited 
form, under a farmer's rick ; and if — worth thinking of, perhaps, 
my fellow-Christians — the Samaritan had in the lonely night 
"passed by on the other side," she would have most devoutly 
thanked High Heaven for her escape from him. 

The morning found her afoot again, but fast declining as to the 
clearness of her thoughts, though not as to the steadiness of her 
purpose. Comprehending that her strength was quitting her, and 
that the struggle of her life was almost ended, she could neither 
reason out the means of getting back to her protectors, nor even 
form the idea. The overmastering dread^ and the proud stubborn 
resolution it engendered in her to die undegraded, were the two 
distinct impressions left in her failing mind. Supported only by 
a sense that she was bent on conquering in her life-long fight, she 
went on. 

The time was come, now, when the wants of this little life were 
passing away from her. She could not have swallowed food, 
though a table had been spread for her in the next field. The 
day was cold and wet, but she scarcely knew it. She crept on, 
poor soul, like a criminal afraid of being taken, and felt little 
beyond the terror of falling down while it was yet daylight, and 
being found alive. She had no fear that she would live through 
another night. 



492 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Sewn in the breast of her gown, the money to pay for her burial 
was still intact. If she could wear through the day, and then lie 
down to die under cover of the darkness, she would die indepen- 
dent. If she were captured previously, the money would be taken 
from her as a pauper who had no right to it, and she would be 
carried to the accursed workhouse. Gaining her end, the letter 
would be found in her breast, along with the money, and the gentle- 
folks would say when it w^as given back to them, " She prized it, 
did old Betty Higden ; she was true to it ; and while she lived, 
she would never let it be disgraced by falling into the hands of 
those that she held in horror." Most illogical, inconsequential, and 
light-headed, this; but travellers in the valley of the shadow of 
death are apt to be light-headed ; and worn-out old people of low 
estate have a trick of reasoning as indifferently as they live, and 
doubtless would appreciate our Poor Law more philosophically on 
an income of ten thousand a year. 

So, keeping to by-ways, and shunning human approach, this 
troublesome old woman hid herself, and fared on all through the 
dreary day. Yet so unlike was she to vagrant hiders in general, 
that sometimes, as the day advanced, there was a bright fire in her 
eyes, and a quicker beating at her feeble heart, as though she said 
exultingly, " The Lord will see me through it ! " 

By what visionary hands she was led along upon that journey of 
escape from the Samaritan ; by what voices, hushed in the grave, 
she seemed to be addressed ; how she fancied the dead child in her 
arms again, and times innumerable adjusted her shawl to keep it 
warm ; what infinite variety of forms of tower and roof and steeple 
the trees took ; how many furious horsemen rode at her, crying, 
" There she goes ! Stop ! Stop, Betty Higden ! " and melted away 
as they came close ; be these things left untold. Faring on and 
hiding, hiding and faring on, the poor harmless creature, as though 
she were a Murderess and the whole country were up after her, 
wore out the day and gained the night. 

"Water-meadows, or such like," she had sometimes murmured, 
on the day's pilgrimage, when she had raised her head and taken 
any note of the real objects about her. There now arose in the 
darkness, a great building full of lighted windows. Smoke was 
issuing from a high chimney in the rear of it, and there was the 
sound of a water-wheel at the side. Between her and the build- 
ing lay a piece of water, in which the lighted windows were re- 
flected, and on its nearest margin was a plantation of trees. " I 
humbly thank the Power and the Glory," said Betty Higden, hold- 
ing up her withered hands, " that I have come to my journey's 
end!" 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 493 

She crept among the trees to the trunk of a tree whence she 
could see, beyond some mtervening trees and branches, the lighted 
windows, both in their reality, and their reflection in the water. 
She placed her orderly little basket at her side, and sank upon the 
ground, supporting herself against the tree. It brought to her 
mind the foot of the Cross, and she committed herself to Him 
who died upon it. Her strength held out to enable her to arrange 
the letter in her breast, so as that it could be seen that she had a 
paper there. It had held out for this, and it departed when this 
was done. 

"I am safe here," was her last benumbed thought. "When I 
am found dead at the foot of the Cross, it will be by some of my 
own sort ; some of the working people who work among the lights 
yonder. I cannot see the lighted windows now, but they are there. 
I am thankful for all ! " 

The darkness gone, and a face bending down. 

" It cannot be the boofer lady ? " 

" I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips again 
with this brandy. I have been away to fetch it. Did you think 
that I was long gone ? " 

It is as the face of a woman, shaded by a quantity of rich dark 
hair. It is the earnest face of a woman who is young and hand- 
some. But all is over with me on earth, and this must be an 
Angel. 

" Have I been long dead ?" 

"I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips 
again. I hurried all I could, and brought no one back with me, 
lest you should die of the shock of strangers." 

"Am I not dead?" 

" I cannot understand what you say. Your voice is so low and 
broken that I cannot hear you. Do you hear me "? " 

" Yes." 

" Do you mean yes ? " 

"Yes." 

" I was coming from my work just now, along the path outside 
(I was up with the night-hands last night), and I heard a groan, 
and found you lying here." 

"What work, deary?" 

"Did you ask what work ? At the paper-mill." 

" Where is it 1 " 

" Your face is turned up to the sky, and you can't see it. It is 
close by. You can see my face, here, between you and the sky ? " 

"Yes." 



494 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Dare I lift you?" 

" Not yet." 

" Not even lift your head to get it on my arm ? I will do it by 
very gentle degrees. You shall hardly feel it." 

" Not yet. Paper. Letter." 

" This paper in your breast ? " 

" Bless ye ! " 

" Let me wet your lips again. Am I to open it ? To read it ? " 

"Bless ye!" " 

She reads it with surprise, and looks down with a new expres- 
sion and an added interest on the motionless face she kneels beside. 

"I know these names. I have heard them often." 

" Will you send it, my dear ? " 

" I cannot understand you. Let me wet your lips again, and 
your forehead. There. poor thing, poor thing ! " These words 
through her fast-dropping tears. "What was it that you asked 
me 1 Wait till I bring my ear quite close." 

" Will you send it, my dear ? " 

"AVill I send it to the writers? Is that your wish? Yes, 
certainly." 

" You'll not give it up to any one but them ? " 

" No." 

" As you must grow old in time, and come to your dying hour, 
my dear, you'll not give it up to any one but them ? " 

"No. Most solemnly." 

" Never to the Parish ? " with a convulsed struggle. 

"No. Most solemnly." 

" Nor let the Parish touch me, nor yet so much as look at me ? " 
with another struggle. 

"No. Faithfully." 

A look of thankfulness and triumph lights the worn old face. 
The eyes, which have been darkly fixed upon the sky, turn with 
meaning in them towards the compassionate face from which the 
tears are dropping, and a smile is on the aged lips as they ask : 

" What is your name, my dear ? " 

" My name is Lizzie Hexam." 

" I must be sore disfigured. Are you afraid to kiss me?" 

The answer is, the ready pressure of her lips upon the cold but 
smiling mouth. 

" Bless ye ! ]}^ow lift me, my love." 

Lizzie Hexam very softly raised the weather-stained grey head, 
and lifted her as high as Heaven. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 495 

CHAPTER IX. 

SOMEBODY BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION. 

" ' We give THEE HEARTY THANKS FOR THAT IT HATH PLEASED 
THEE TO DELIVER THIS OUR SISTER OUT OF THE MISERIES OF 

THIS SINFUL WORLD.' " So read the Reverend Frank Milvey in 
a not untroubled voice, for his heart misgave him that all was 
not quite right between us and our sister — or say our sister in 
Law — Poor Law — and that we sometimes read these words in 
an awful manner, over our Sister and our Brother too. 

And Sloppy — on whom the brave deceased had never turned 
her back until she ran away from him, knowing that otherwise 
he would not be separated from her — Sloppy could not in his 
conscience as yet find the hearty thanks required of it. Selfish in 
Sloppy, and yet excusable, it may be humbly hoped, because our 
sister had been more than his mother. 

The words were read above the ashes of Betty Higden, in a 
corner of a churchyard near the river; in a churchyard so obscure 
that there was nothing in it but grass-mounds, not so much as 
one single tombstone. It might not be to do an unreasonably 
great deal for the diggers and hewers, in a registering age, if we 
ticketed their graves at the common charge; so that a new 
generation might know which was which : so that the soldier, sailor, 
emigrant, coming home, should be able to identify the resting- 
place of father, mother, playmate, or betrothed. For, we turn 
up our eyes and say that we are all alike in death, and we might 
turn them down and work the saying out in this world, so far. 
It would be sentimental, perhaps 1 But how say ye, my lords 
and gentlemen and honourable boards, shall we not find good 
standing-room left for a little sentiment, if we look into our 
crowds ? 

Near unto the Reverend Frank Milvey as he read, stood his 
little wife, John Rokesmith the Secretary, and Bella Wilfer. 
These, over and above Sloppy, were the mourners at the lowly 
grave. Not a penny had been added to the money sewn in her 
dress : what her honest spirit had so long projected, was fulfilled. 

"I've took it in my head," said Sloppy, laying it, inconsolable, 
against the church door, when all was done: "I've took it in 
my wretched head that I might have sometimes turned a little 
harder for her, and it cuts me deep to think so now." 

The Reverend Frank Milvey, comforting Sloppy, expounded 
to him how the best of us were more or less remiss in our 
turnings at our respective Mangles — some of us very much 



496 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

so — and how we were all a halting, failing, feeble, and inconstant 
crew. 

" She warn't, sir," said Sloppy, taking this ghostly counsel rather 
ill, in behalf of his late benefactress. "Let us speak for our- 
selves, sir. She went through with whatever duty she had to do. 
She went through with me, she went through with the Minders, 
she went through with herself, she went through with everything. 

Mrs. Higden, Mrs. Higden, you was a woman and a mother and a 
mangier in a million million ! " 

With those heartfelt words. Sloppy removed his dejected head 
from the church door, and took it back to the grave in the 
corner and laid it down there, and wept alone. "Not a very 
poor grave," said the Eeverend Frank Milvey, brushing his hand 
across his eyes, " when it has that homely figure on it. Richer, 

1 think, than it could be made by most of the sculpture in 
Westminster Abbey ! " 

They left him undisturbed, and passed out at the wicket-gate. 
The water-wheel of the paper-mill was audible there, and seemed 
to have a softening influence on the bright wintry scene. They 
had arrived but a little while before, and Lizzie Hexam now told 
them the little she could add to the letter in which she had 
enclosed Mr. Rokesmith's letter and had asked for their instruc- 
tions. This was merely how she had heard the groan, and what 
had afterwards passed, and how she had obtained leave for the 
remains to be placed in that sweet, fresh, empty store-room of the 
mill from which they had just accompanied them to the church- 
yard, and how the last request had been religiously observed. 

" I could not have done it all, or nearly all, of myself," said 
Lizzie. " I should not have wanted the will ; but I should not 
have had the power, without our managing partner." 

" Surely not the Jew who received us 1 " said Mrs. Milvey. 

("My dear," observed her husband, in parenthesis, " why not ? ") 

" The gentleman certainly is a Jew," said Lizzie, " and the 
lady, his wife, is a Jewess, and I was first brought to their 
notice by a Jew. But I think there cannot be kinder people 
in the world." 

"But suppose they try to convert you!" suggested Mrs. 
Milvey, bristling in her good little way, as a clergyman's wife. 

" To do what, ma'am? " asked Lizzie, with a modest smile. 

"To make you change your religion," said Mrs. Milvey. 

Lizzie shook her head, still smiling. " They have never asked 
me what my religion is. They asked me what my story was, 
and I told them. They asked me to be industrious and faithful, 
and I promised to be so. They most willingly and cheerfully do 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 497 

their duty to all of us who are employed here, and we try to do 
ours to them. Indeed they do much more than their duty to us, 
for they are wonderfully mindful of us in many ways." 

"It is easy to see you're a favourite, my dear," said little Mrs. 
Milvey, not quite pleased. 

"It would be very ungrateful in me to say I am not," 
returned Lizzie, "for I have been already raised to a place of 
confidence here. But that makes no diff'erence in their following 
their own religion and leaving all of us to ours. They never talk 
of theirs to us, and they never talk of ours to us. If I was the 
last in the mill it would be just the same. They never asked me 
what religion that poor thing had followed." 

" My dear," said Mrs. Milvey, aside to the Reverend Frank, 
" I wish you would talk to her." 

"My dear," said the Reverend Frank, aside to his good little 
wife, "I think I will leave it to somebody else. The circum- 
stances are hardly favourable. There are plenty of talkers 
going about, my love, and she will soon find one." 

While this discourse was interchanging, both Bella and the 
Secretary observed Lizzie Hexam with great attention. Brought 
face to face for the first time with the daughter of his supposed 
murderer, it was natural that John Harmon should have his 
own secret reasons for a careful scrutiny of her countenance 
and manner. Bella knew that Lizzie's father had been falsely 
accused of the crime which had had so great an influence on her 
own life and fortunes ; and her interest, though it had no secret 
springs, like that of the Secretary, was equally natural. Both had 
expected to see something very different from the real Lizzie 
Hexam, and thus it fell out that she became the unconscious 
means of bringing them together. 

For, when they had walked on with her to the little house in 
the clean village by the paper-mill, where Lizzie had a lodging 
with an elderly couple employed in the establishment, and when 
Mrs. Milvey and Bella had been up to see her room and had come 
down, the mill bell rang. This called Lizzie away for the time, 
and left the Secretary and Bella standing rather awkwardly in the 
small street ; Mrs. Milvey being engaged in pursuing the village 
children, and her investigations whether they were in danger of 
becoming children of Israel; and the Reverend Frank being en- 
gaged — to say the truth — in evading that branch of his spiritual 
functions, and getting out of sight surreptitiously. 

Bella at length said : 

" Hadn't we better talk about the commission we have under- 
taken, Mr. Rokesmith ? " 

2k 



498 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"By all means," said the Secretaiy. 

"I suppose," faltered Bella, "that we are both commissioDed, 
or we shouldn't both be here 1 " 

"I suppose so," was the Secretaiy's answer. 

" When I proposed to come with Mr. and Mrs. Milvey," said 
Bella, " Mrs. Boffin urged me to do so, in order that I might give 
her my small report — it's not worth anything, Mr. Rokesmith, 
except for its being a woman's — which indeed with you may be 
a fresh reason for its being worth nothing — of Lizzie Hexam." 

"Mr. Boffin," said the Secretary, "directed me to come for the 
same purpose." 

As they spoke they were leaving the little street and emerging 
on the wooded landscape by the river. 

"You think well of her, Mr. Rokesmith?" jDursued Bella, con- 
scious of making all the advances. 

" I think highly of her." 

" I am so glad of that ! Something quite refined in her beauty, 
is there not ? " 

" Her appearance is veiy striking." 

"There is a shade of sadness upon her that is quite touching. 
At least I — I am not setting up my own poor opinion, you know, 
Mr. Rokesmith," said Bella, excusing and explaining herself in a 
pretty shy way ; "I am consulting you." 

" I noticed that sadness. I hope it may not," said the Secretary 
in a lower voice, " be the result of the false accusation which has 
been retracted." 

When they had passed on a little further without speaking, 
Bella, after stealing a glance or two at the Secretary, suddenly 
said : 

"Oh, Mr. Rokesmith, don't be hard with me, don't be stern 
with me ; be magnanimous ! I want to talk with you on equal 
terms." 

The Secretary as suddenly brightened, and returned : " Upon 
my honour I had no thought but for you. I forced myself to be 
constrained, lest you might misinterpret my being more natural. 
There. It's gone." 

"Thank you," said Bella, holding out her little hand. "For- 
give me." 

" No ! " cried the Secretary, eagerly. " Forgive me I " For 
there were tears in her eyes, and they were prettier in his sight 
(though they smote him on the heart rather reproachfully too) 
than any other glitter in the world. 

When they had walked a little further : 

"You were going to speak to me," said the Secretary, with the 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 499 

shadow so lon^ on him quite thrown off and cast away, "about 
Lizzie Hexam. So was I going to speak to you, if I could have 
begun." 

"Now that you can begin, sir," returned Bella, with a look as 
if she italicised the word by putting one of her dimples under it, 
" what were you going to say ? " 

"You remember, of course, that in her short letter to Mrs. 
Boffin — short, but containing everything to the purpose — she 
stipulated that either her name, or else her place of residence, must 
be kept strictly a secret among us." 

Bella nodded Yes. 

" It is my duty to find out why she made that stipulation. I 
have it in charge from Mr. Boffin to discover, and I am very desir- 
ous for myself to discover, whether that retracted accusation still 
leaves any stain upon her. I mean whether it places her at any 
disadvantage towards any one, even towards herself." 

"Yes," said Bella, nodding thoughtfully; "I understand. That 
seems wise and considerate." 

" You may not have noticed, Miss Wilfer, that- she has the same 
kind of interest in you that you have in her. Just as you are 
attracted by her beaut — by her appearance and manner, she is 
attracted by yours." 

" I certainly have not noticed it," returned Bella, again italicising 
with the dimple, "and I should have given her credit for " 

The Secretary with a smile held up his hand, so plainly inter- 
posing "not for better taste," that Bella's colour deepened over the 
little piece of coquetry she was checked in. 

"And so," resumed the Secretary, "if you would speak with her 
alone before we go away from here, I feel quite sure that a natural 
and easy confidence would arise between you. Of course you would 
not be asked to betray it ; and of course you would not, if you 
were. But if you do not object to put this question to her — to 
ascertain for us her own feeling in this one matter — you can do 
so at a far greater advantage than I or any one else could. Mr. 
Boffin is anxious on the subject. And I am," added the Secretary 
after a moment, "for a special reason, very anxious." 

"I shall be happy, Mr. Rokesmith," returned Bella, "to be of 
the least use ; for I feel, after the serious scene of to-day, that I 
am useless enough in this world." 

"Don't say that," urged tlie Secretary. * 

"Oh, but I mean that," said Bella, raising her eyebrows. 

"No one is useless in this world," retorted the Secretary, "who 
lightens the burden of it for any one else." 

"But I assure you I don't^ Mr. Rokesmith," said Bella, half crying. 



500 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Not for your father?" 

" Dear, loving, self-forgetting, easily-satisfied Pa ! Oh, yes ! He 
thinks so." 

" It is enough if he only thinks so," said the Secretary. " Excuse 
the interruption : I don't like to hear you depreciate yourself." 

"But you once depreciated me^ sir," thought Bella, pouting, 
"and I hope you may be satisfied with the consequences you 
brought upon your head ! " However, she said nothing to that 
purpose ; she even said something to a different purpose. 

"Mr. Rokesmith, it seems so long since we spoke together 
naturally, that I am embarrassed in approaching another subject. 
Mr. Boffin. You know I am very grateful to him ; don't you % 
You know I feel a true respect for him, and am bound to him by 
the strong ties of his own generosity ; now don't you % " 

" Unquestionably. And also that you are his favourite com- 
panion." 

" That makes it," said Bella, " so very difficult to speak of him. 
But Does he treat you well % " 

" You see how he treats me," the Secretary answered, with a 
patient and yet proud air. 

"Yes, and I see it with pain," said Bella, very energetically. 

The Secretary gave her such a radiant look, that if he had 
thanked her a hundred times, he could not have said as much as 
the look said. 

"I see it with pain," repeated Bella, "and it often makes me 
miserable. Miserable, because I cannot bear to be supposed to 
approve of it, or have any indirect share in it. Miserable, because 
I cannot bear to be forced to admit to myself that Fortune is 
spoiling Mr. Boffin." 

"Miss Wilfer," said the Secretary, with a beaming face, "if 
you could know with what delight I make the discovery that Fort- 
une is not spoiling you^ you would know that it more than com- 
pensates me for any slight at any other hands." 

"Oh, don't speak of me,'' said Bella, giving herself an impa- 
tient little slap with her glove. "You don't know me as well 
as " 

"As you know yourself?" suggested the Secretary, finding that 
she stopped. " Do you know yourself? " 

" I know quite enough of myself," said Bella, with a charming 
air of being inclined to give herself up as a bad job, "and I don't 
improve upon acquaintance. But Mr. Boffin." 

" That Mr. Boffin's manner to me, or consideration for me, is not 
what it used to be," observed the Secretary, "must, be admitted,, 
It is too plain to be denied." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 501 

"Are you disposed to deny it, Mr. Rokesmith?" asked Bella, 
with a look of wonder. 

"Ought I not to be glad to do so, if I could : though it were 
only for my own sake ? " 

"Truly," returned Bella, "it must try you very much, and — 
you must please promise me that you won't take ill what I am 
going to add, Mr. Rokesmith ? " 

" I promise it with all my heart." 

" — And it must sometimes, I should think," said Bella, hesi- 
tating, "a little lower you in your own estimation?" 

Assenting with a movement of his head, though not at all look- 
ing as if he did, the Secretary replied : 

" I have very strong reasons. Miss Wilfer, for bearing with the 
drawbacks of my position in the house we both inhabit. Believe 
that they are not all mercenary, although I have, through a series 
of strange fatalities, faded out of my place in life. If what you see 
with such a gracious and good sympathy is calculated to rouse 
my pride, there are other considerations (and those you do not 
see) urging me to quiet endurance. The latter are by far the 
stronger." 

"I think I have noticed, Mr. Rokesmith," said Bella, looking at 
him with curiosity, as not quite making him out, " that you repress 
yourself, and force yourself, to act a passive part." 

"You are right. I repress myself and force myself to act a 
part. It is not in tameness of spirit that I submit. I have a 
settled purpose." 

"And a good one, I hope," said Bella. 

"And a good one, I hope," he answered, looking steadily at her. 

"Sometimes I have fancied, sir," said Bella, turning away her 
eyes, "that your great regard for Mrs. Boffin is a very powerful 
motive with you." 

"You are right again ; it is. I would do anything for her, bear 
anything for her. There are no words to express how I esteem 
that good, good woman." 

"As I do too ! May I ask you one thing more, Mr. Roke- 
smith ? " 

" Anything more." 

"Of course you see that she really suffers, when Mr. Boffin shows 
how he is changing ? " 

"I see it, eveiy day, as you see it, and am grieved to give her 
pain." 

" To give her pain 1 " said Bella, repeating the phrase quickly, 
with her eyebrows raised. 

"I am generally the unfortunate cause of it." 



502 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Perliaps she says to you, as she often says to me, that he is 
the best of men in spite of all." 

" I often overhear her, in her honest and beautiful devotion to 
him, saying so to you," returned the Secretary with the same steady 
look, " but I cannot assert that she ever says so to me." 

Bella met the steady look for a moment with a wistful, musing 
little look of her own, and then, nodding her pretty head several 
times, like a dimpled philosopher (of the very best school) who was 
moralising on Life, heaved a little sigh, and gave up things in gen- 
eral for a bad job, as she had previously been inclined to give up 
herself. 

But, for all that, they had a very pleasant walk. The trees 
were bare of leaves, and the river was bare of water-lihes, but the 
sky was not bare of its beautiful blue, and the water reflected it, 
and a delicious wind ran with the stream, touching .the surface 
crisply. Perhaps the old mirror was never yet made by human 
hands, which, if all the images it had in its time reflected could 
pass across its surface again, would fail to reveal some scene of 
"horror or distress. But the great serene mirror of the river seemed 
as if it might have reproduced all it had ever reflected between 
those placid banks, and brought nothing to the light save what was 
peaceful, pastoral, and blooming. 

So, they walked, speaking of the newly filled-up grave, and of 
Johnny, and of many things. So, on their return, they met brisk 
Mrs. Milvey coming to seek them, with the agreeable intelligence 
that there was no fear for the village children, there being a Chris- 
tian school in the village, and no worse Judaical interference with 
it than to plant its garden. So, they got back to the village as 
Lizzie Hexam was coming from the paper-mill, and Bella detached 
herself to speak with her in her own home. 

" I am afraid it is a poor room for you," said Lizzie, with a smile 
of welcome, as she offered the post of honour by the fireside. 

"Not so poor as you think, my dear," returned Bella,' "if you 
knew all." Indeed, though attained by some wonderful winding 
narrow stairs, which seemed to have been erected in a pure white 
chimney, and though very low in the ceiling, and very rugged in the 
floor, and rather blinking as to the proportions of its lattice window, 
it was a pleasanter room than that despised chamber once at home, 
in which Bella had first bemoaned the miseries of taking lodgers. 

The day was closing as the two girls looked at one another by 
the fireside. Tlie dusky room was lighted by the fire. The grate 
might have been the old brazier, and the glow might have been the 
old hollow down by the flare. 

" It's quite new to me," said Lizzie, "to be visited by a lady so 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 503 

nearly of my own age, and so pretty as you. It's a pleasure to me 
to look at you." 

" I have nothing left to begin with," returned Bella, blushing, 
" because I was going to say that it was a pleasure to me to look 
at you, Lizzie. But we can begin without a beginning, can't we ? " 

Lizzie took the pretty little hand that was held out in as pretty 
a little frankness. 

"Now, dear," said Bella, drawing her chair a little nearer, and 
taking Lizzie's arm as if they were going out for a walk, "I am 
commissioned with something to say, and I dare say I shall say it 
wrong, but I won't if I can help it. It is in reference to your 
letter to Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, and this is what it is. Let me see. 
Oh yes ! This is what it is." 

With this exordium, Bella set forth that request of Lizzie's 
touching secrecy, and delicately spoke of that false accusation and 
its retractation, and asked might she beg to be informed whether it 
had any bearing, near or remote, on such request. "I feel, my 
dear," said Bella, quite amazing herself by the business-like manner 
in which she was getting on, " that the subject must be a painful 
one to you, but I am mixed up in it also; for — I don't know 
whether you may know it or suspect it — I am the willed-away 
girl who was to have been married to the unfortunate gentleman, 
if he had been pleased to approve of me. So I was dragged into 
the subject without my consent, and you were dragged into it 
without your consent, and there is very little to choose between 
us." 

" I had no doubt," said Lizzie, " that you were the Miss Wilfer 
I have often heard named. Can you tell me who my unknown 
friend is ? " 

" Unknown friend, my dear 1 " said Bella. 

" Who caused the charge against poor father to be contradicted, 
and sent me the written paper." 

Bella had never heard of him. Had no notion who he was. 

" I should have been glad to thank him," returned Lizzie. 
" He has done a great deal for me. I must hope that he will 
let me thank him some day. You asked me has it anything to 
do " 

" It or the accusation itself," Bella put in. 

" Yes. Has either anything to do with my wishing to live quite 
secret and retired here ? No." 

As Lizzie Hexam shook her head in giving this reply, and as 
her glance sought the fire, there was a quiet resolution in her folded 
hands, not lost on Bella's bright eyes. 

" Have you lived much alone ? " asked Bella. 



504 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Yes. It's nothing new to me. I used to be always alone 
many hours together, in the day and in the night, when poor 
father was alive." 

" You have a brother, I have been told ? " 

"I have a brother; but he is not friendly with me. He is a 
very good boy though, and has raised himself by his industry. I 
don't complain of him." 

As she said it, with her eyes upon the fire-glow, there was an 
instantaneous escape of distress into her face. Bella seized the 
moment to touch her hand. 

" Lizzie, I wish you would tell me whether you have any friend 
of your own sex and age." 

" I have lived that lonely kind of life, that 1 have never had 
one," was the answer. 

" Nor I neither," said Bella. " Not that my life has been lonely, 
for I could have sometimes wished it lonelier, instead of having 
Ma going on like the Tragic Muse with a face-ache in majestic 
corners, and Lavvy being spiteful — though, of course, I am very 
fond of them both. I wish you could make a friend of me, Lizzie. 
Do you think you could ? I have no more of what they call char- 
acter, my dear, than a canary-bird ; but 1 know I am trustworthy." 

The wayward, playful, affectionate nature, giddy for want of the 
weight of some sustaining purpose, and capricious because it was 
always fluttering among little things, was yet a captivating one. 
To Lizzie it was so new, so pretty, at once so womanly and so 
childish, that it won her completely. And when Bella said again, 
" Do you think you could, Lizzie ?" with her eyebrows raised, her 
head inquiringly on one side, and an odd doubt about it in her 
own bosom, Lizzie showed beyond all question that she thought she 
could. 

"Tell me, my dear," said Bella, "what is the matter, and why 
you live like this." 

Lizzie presently began, by way of prelude, "You must have 
many lovers — " when Bella checked her with a little scream of 
astonishment. 

" My dear, I haven't one ! " 

" Not one 1 " 

" Well ! Perhaps one," said Bella. " I am sure I don't know. 
I had one, but what he may think about it at the present time I 
can't say. Perhaps I have half a one (of course I don't count that 
Idiot, George Sampson). However, never mind me. I want to 
hear about you." 

"There is a certain man," said Lizzie, "a passionate and angry 
man, who says he loves me, and who I must believe does love me. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 505 

He is the friend of my brother. I shrank from him within myself 
when my brother first brought him to me ; but the last time I saw 
him, he terrified me more that I can say." There she stopped. 

" Did you come here to escape from him, Lizzie ? " 

"I came here immediately after he so alarmed me." 

" Are you afraid of him here ? " 

" I am not timid generally, but I am always afraid of him. I 
am afraid to see a newspaper, or to hear a word spoken of what is 
done in London, lest he should have done some violence." 

" Then you are not afraid of him for yourself, dear ? " said Bella, 
after pondering on the words. 

" I should be even that, if I met him about here. I look round 
for him always as I pass to and fro at night." 

" Are you afraid of anything he may do to himself in London, 
my dear ? " 

" No. He might be fierce enough even to do some violence to 
himself, but I don't think of that." 

"Then it would almost seem, dear," said Bella, quaintly, "as if 
there must be somebody else ? " 

Lizzie put her hands before her face for a moment, before reply- 
ing : " The words are always in my ears, and the blow he struck 
upon a stone wall as he said them, is always before my eyes. I have 
tried hard to think it not worth remembering, but I cannot make 
so little of it. His hand was trickling down with blood as he said 
to me, ' Then I hope that I may never kill him ! ' " 

Rather startled, Bella made and clasped a girdle of her arms 
round Lizzie's waist, and then asked quietly, in a soft voice, as they 
both looked at the fire : 

" Kill him ! Is this man so jealous, then ? " 

" Of a gentleman," said Lizzie. " — I hardly know how to tell 
you — of a gentleman far above me and my way of life, who broke 
father's death to me, and has shown an interest in me since." 

" Does he love you ? " 

Lizzie shook her head. 

" Does he admire you 1 " 

Lizzie ceased to shake her head, and pressed her hand upon her 
living girdle, 

"Is it through his influence that you came here 1 " 

" Oh, no ! And of all the world I wouldn't have him know 
that I am here, or get the least clue where to find me." 

"Lizzie, dear! Why?" asked Bella, in amazement at this 
burst. But then quickly added, reading Lizzie's face : " No. Don't 
say why. That was a foolish question of mine. I see. I see." 

There was silence between them. Lizzie, with a drooping head, 



506 OUK MUTUAL FRIEND. 

glanced down at the glow in the fire where her first fancies had 
been nursed, and her first escape made from the grim life out of 
which she had plucked her brother, foreseeing her reward. 

"You know all now," she said, raising her eyes to Bella's. 
" There is nothing left out. This is my reason for living secret 
here, with the aid of a good old man who is my true friend. For 
a short part of my life at home with father, I knew of things — 
don't ask me what — that I set my face against, and tried to better. 
I don't think I could have done • more, then, without letting my 
hold on father go ; but they sometimes lie heavy on my mind. By 
doing all for the best, I hope I may wear them out." 

"And wear out too," said Bella soothingly, "this weakness, 
Lizzie, in favour of one who is not worthy of it." 

"No. I don't want to wear that out," was the flushed reply, 
" nor do I want to believe, nor do I believe, that he is not worthy 
of it. What should I gain by that, and how much should I lose ! " 

Bella's expressive little eyebrows remonstrated with the fire for 
some short time before she rejoined : 

"Don't think that I press you, Lizzie; but wouldn't you gain in 
peace, and hope, and even in freedom ? Wouldn't it be better not to 
live a secret life in hiding, and not to be shut out from your natural 
and wholesome prospects 1 Forgive my asking you, would that be 



no gam 



r' 



Does a woman's heart that — that has that weakness in it which 
you have spoken of," returned Lizzie, "seek to gain anything?" 

The question was so directly at variance with Bella's views in 
life, as set forth to her father, that she said internally, " There, you 
little mercenary wretch ! Do you hear that 1 Ain't you ashamed 
of yourself?" and unclasped the girdle of her arms, expressly to 
give herself a penitential poke in the side. 

"But you said, Lizzie," observed Bella, returning to her subject 
when she had administered this chastisement, "that you would 
lose, besides. Would you mind telling me what vou would lose, 
Lizzie?" 

" I should lose some of the best recollections, best encourage- 
ments, and best objects, that I carry through my daily life. I 
should lose my belief that if I had been his equal, and he had 
loved me, I should have tried with all my might to make him better 
and happier, as he would have made me. I should lose almost all 
the value that I put upon the little learning I have, which is all 
owing to him, and which I conquered the difliculties of, that he 
might not think it thrown away upon me. I should lose a kind of 
picture of him — or of what he might have been, if I had been a 
lady, and he had loved me — which is always with me, and which 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 507 

I somehow feel that I could not do a mean or a wrong thmg before. 
I should leave oft' prizing the remembrance that he has done me 
nothing but good since I have known him, and that he has made a 
change within me, like — like the change in the grain of these 
hands, which were coarse, and cracked, and hard, and brown when 
I rowed on the river with father, and are softened and made supple 
by this new work as you see them now." 

They trembled, but with no weakness, as she showed them. 

" Understand me, my dear ; " thus she went on, "I have never 
dreamed of the possibility of his being anything to me on this earth 
but the kind of picture that I know I could not make you under- 
stand, if the understanding was not in your own breast already. I 
have no more dreamed of the possibility of my being his wife, than 
he ever has — and words could not be stronger than that. And 
yet I love him. I love him so much and so dearly, that when I 
sometimes think my life may be but a weary one, I am proud of it 
and glad of it. I am proud and glad to suffer something for him, 
even though it is of no service to him, and he will never know of 
it or care for it." 

Bella sat enchained by the deep, unselfish passion of this girl or 
woman of her own age, courageously revealing itself in the confi- 
dence of her sympathetic perception of its truth. And yet she had 
never experienced anything like it, or thought of the existence of 
anything like it. 

"It was late upon a wretched night," said Lizzie, "when his 
eyes first looked at me in my old river-side home, very different from 
this. His eyes may never look at me again, I would rather that 
they never did ; I hope that they never may. But I would not 
have the light of them taken out of my life, for anything my life 
can give me. I have told you everything now, my dear. If it 
comes a little strange to me to have parted with it, I am not sorry. 
I had no thought of ever parting with a single word of it, a mo- 
ment before you came in ; but you came in, and my mind changed." 

Bella kissed her on the cheek, and thanked her warmly for her 
confidence. "I only wish," said Bella, "I was more deserving 
of it." 

"More deserving of it?" repeated Lizzie, with an incredulous 
smile. 

" I don't mean in respect of keeping it," said Bella, " because any 
one should tear me to bits before getting at a syllable of it — though 
there's no merit in that, for I am naturally as obstinate as a Pig. 
What I mean is, Lizzie, that I am a mere impertinent piece of 
conceit, and you shame me." 

Lizzie put up the pretty brown hair that came tumbling down, 



608 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

owing to the energy with which Bella shook her head : and she 
remonstrated while thus engaged, " My dear ! " 

" Oh, it's all very well to call me your dear," said Bella, with a 
pettish whimper, "and I am glad to be called so, though I have 
slight enough claim to be. But I am such a nasty little thing ! " 

" My dear ! " urged Lizzie again. 

" Such a shallow, cold, worldly, Limited little brute ! " said Bella, 
bringing out her last adjective with culminating force. 

"Do you think," inquired Lizzie, with her quiet smile, the hair 
being now secured, "that I don't know better?" 

" Do you know better, though ? " said Bella. " Do you really 
believe you know better? Oh, I should be so glad if you did 
know better, but I am so very much afraid that I must know 
best ! " 

Lizzie asked her, laughing outright, whether she ever saw her 
own face or heard her own voice ? 

" I suppose so," returned Bella ; "I look in the glass often 
enough, and I chatter like a Magpie." 

"I have seen your face, and heard your voice, at any rate," said 
Lizzie, " and they have tempted me to say to you — with a cer- 
tainty of not going wrong — what I thought I should never say to 
any one. Does that look ill ? " 

" No, I hope it doesn't," pouted Bella, stopping herself in some- 
thing between a humoured laugh and a humoured sob. 

"I used once to see pictures in the fire," said Lizzie, playfully, 
"to please my brother. Shall I tell you what I see down there 
where the fire is glowing % " 

They had risen, and were standing on the hearth, the time being 
come for separating ; each had drawn an arm around the other to 
take leave. 

"Shall I tell you," asked Lizzie, "what I see down there ?" 

" Limited little b % " suggested Bella, with her eyebrows raised. 

" A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once 
won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, 
and is never daunted." 

" Girl's heart % " asked Bella, with accompanying eyebrows. 

Lizzie nodded. "And the figure to which it belongs " 

"Is yours," suggested Bella. 

"No. Most clearly and distinctly yours." 

So the interview terminated with pleasant words on both sides, 
and with many reminders on the part of Bella that they were friends, 
and pledges that she would soon come down into that part of the 
country again. Therewith Lizzie returned to her occupation, and 
Bella ran over to the little inn to rejoin her company. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 509 

"You look rather serious, Miss Wilfer," was the Secretary's first 
remark. 

" I feel rather serious," returned Miss Wilfer. 

She had nothing else to tell him but that Lizzie Hexam's secret 
had no reference whatever to the cruel charge, or its withdrawal. 
Oh yes though ! said Bella : she might as well mention one other 
thing ; Lizzie was very desirous to thank her unknown friend who 
had sent her the written retractation. Was she indeed ? observed 
the Secretary. Ah ! Bella asked him, had he any notion who 
that unknown friend might be ? He had no notion whatever. 

They were on the borders of Oxfordshire, so far had poor old Betty 
Higden strayed. They were to return by the train presently, and, 
the station being near at hand, the Rev. Frank and Mrs. Frank, 
and Sloppy and Bella and the Secretary, set out to walk to it. 
Few rustic paths are wide enough for five, and Bella and the 
Secretary dropped behind. 

"Can you believe, Mr. Rokesmith," said Bella, "that I feel as 
if whole years had passed since I went into Lizzie Hexam's cottage 1 " 

" We have crowded a good deal into the day," he returned, " and 
you were much affected in the churchyard. You are over- tired." 

" No, I am not at all tired. I have not quite expressed what I 
mean. I don't mean that I feel as if a great space of time had gone 
by, but that I feel as if much had happened — to myself, you know." 

"For good, I hope?" 

" I hope so," said Bella. 

" You are cold ; I felt you tremble. Pray let me put this wrapper 
of mine about you. May I fold it over this shoulder without in- 
juring your dress ? Now, it will be too heavy and too long. Let 
me carry this end over my arm, as you have no arm to give me." 

Yes she had though. How she got it out in her mufiied state, 
Heaven knows ; but she got it out somehow — there it was — and 
slipped it through the Secretary's. 

"I have had a long and interesting talk with Lizzie, Mr. 
Rokesmith, and she gave me her full confidence." 

" She could not withhold it," said the Secretaiy. 

" I wonder how you come," said Bella, stopping short as she 
glanced at him, " to say to me just what she said about it ! " 

" I infer that it must be because I feel just as she felt about it." 

" And how was that, do you mean to say, sir ? " asked Bella, 
moving again. 

" That if you were inclined to win her confidence — anybody's 
confidence- — you were sure to do it." 

The railway, at this point, knowingly shutting a green eye and 
opening a red one, they had to run for it. As Bella could not run 



510 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

easily so wrapped up, the Secretary had to help her. When she 
took her opposite place in the carriage corner, the brightness in her 
face was so charming to behold, that on her exclaiming, "What 
beautiful stars and what a glorious night ! " the Secretary said 
"Yes," but seemed to prefer to see the night and the stars in the 
light of her lovely little countenance, to looking out of window. 

boofer lady, fascinating boofer lady ! If I were but legally 
executor of Jolmny's will ! If I had but the right to pay your 
legacy and to take your receipt ! — Something to this purpose 
surely mingled with the blast of the train as it cleared the stations, 
all knowingly shutting up their green eyes and opening their red 
ones when they prepared to let the boofer lady pass. 



CHAPTER X. 

SCOUTS OUT. 

"And so. Miss Wren," said Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, "I cannot 
persuade you to dress me a doll ? " 

" No," replied Miss Wren, snappishly ; "if you want one, go and 
buy one at the shop." 

"And my charming young god-daughter," said Mr. Wrayburn, 
plaintively, " down in Hertfordshire — " 

("Humbugshire you mean, I think," interposed Miss Wren.) 

" — is to be put upon the cold footing of the general public, and 
is to derive no advantage from my private acquaintance with the 
Court Dressmaker ? " 

" If it's any advantage to your charming godchild — and oh, a 
precious godfather she has got ! " replied Miss Wren, pricking at 
him in the air with her needle, "to be informed that the Court 
Dressmaker knows your tricks and your manners, you may tell her 
so by post, with my compliments," 

Miss Wren was busy at her work by candle-light, and Mx- 
Wrayburn, half amused and half vexed, and all idle and shiftless, 
stood by her bench looking on. Miss Wren's troublesome child was 
in the corner in deep disgrace, and exhibiting great wretchedness in 
the shivering stage of prostration from drink. 

" Ugh, you disgraceful boy ! " exclaimed Miss Wren, attracted by 
the sound of his chattering teeth, " I wish they'd all drop down 
your throat and play at dice in your stomach ! Boh, wicked child ! 
Bee-baa, black sheep ! " 

On her accompanying each of these reproaches with a threaten- 
ing stamp of the foot, the wretched creature protested with a whine. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 511 

" Pay five shillings for you indeed ! " Miss Wren proceeded ; 
" how many hours do you suppose it costs me to earn five shillings, 
you infamous boy ?— -Don't cry like that, or I'll throw a doll at you. 
Pay five shillings fine for you indeed. Fine in more ways than one, 
I think ! I'd give the dustman five shillings to carry you ofi" in 
the dust cart." 

" No, no," pleaded the absurd creature. " Please ! " 

" He's enough to break his mother's heart, is this boy," said Miss 
Wren, half appealing to Eugene. " I wish I had never brought 
him up. He'd be sharper than a serpent's tooth, if he wasn't as 
dull as ditch water. Look at him. There's a pretty object for a 
parent's eyes ! " 

Assuredly, in his worse than swinish state (for swine at least 
fatten on their guzzling, and make themselves good to eat), he was a 
pretty object for any eyes. 

"A muddhng and a swipey old child," said Miss Wren, rating 
him with great severity, " fit for nothing but to be preserved in the 
liquor that destroys him, and put in a great glass bottle as a sight 
for other swipey children of his own pattern, — if he has no 
consideration for his liver, has he none for his mother ? " 

" Yes. Deration, oh don't ! " cried the subject of these angry 
remarks. 

" Oh don't and oh don't," pursued Miss Wren. " It's oh do and 
oh do. And why do you 1 " 

" Won't do so any more. Won't indeed. Pray ! " 

" There ! " said Miss Wren, covering her eyes with her hand, " I 
can't bear to look at you. Go upstairs and get me my bonnet and 
shawl. Make yourself useful in some way, bad boy, and let me 
have your room instead of your company, for one half-minute." 

Obeying her, he shambled out, and Eugene Wrayburn saw the 
tears exude from between the little creature's fingers as she kept her 
hand before her eyes. He was sorry, but his sympathy did not 
move his carelessness to do anything but feel sorry, 

"I'm going to the Italian Opera to try on," said Miss Wren, 
taking away her hand after a little while, and laughing satirically 
to hide that she had been crying ; "I must see your back before I 
go, Mr. Wrayburn. Let me first tell you, once for all, that it's of 
no use your paying visits to me. You wouldn't get what you want, 
of me, no, not if you brought pincers with you to tear it out." 

"Are you so obstinate on the subject of a doll's dress for my 
godchild?" 

" Ah ! " returned Miss Wren with a hitch of her chin, " I am so 
obstinate. And of course it's on the subject of a doll's dress — or 
ac^dress — whichever you like. Get along and give it up ! " 



512 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Her degraded charge had come back, and was standing behind 
her with the bonnet and shawl. 

" Give 'em to me and get back into your corner, you naughty old 
thing ! " said Miss Wren, as she turned and espied him. " No, no, 
I won't have your help. Go into your corner, this minute ! " 

The miserable man, feebly rubbing the back of his faltering hands 
downwards from the wrists, shuffled on to his post of disgrace ; but 
not without a curious glance at Eugene in passing him, accom- 
panied with what seemed as if it might have been an action of his 
elbow, if any action of any limb or joint he had would have answered 
truly to his will. Taking no more particular notice of him than 
instinctively falling away from the disagreeable contact, Eugene, 
with a lazy compliment or so to Miss Wren, begged leave to light 
his cigar and departed. 

"Now, you prodigal old son," said Jenny, shaking her head and 
her emphatic little forefinger at her burden, "you sit there till I 
come back. You dare to move out of your corner for a single instant 
while I'm gone, and I'll know the reason why." 

With this admonition, she blew her work candles out, leaving 
him to the light of the fire, and, taking her big door-key in her 
pocket and her crutch-stick in her hand, marched off". 

Eugene lounged slowly towards the Temple, smoking his cigar, 
but saw no more of the dolls' dressmaker, through the accident of 
their taking opposite sides of the street. He lounged along moodily, 
and stopped at Charing Cross to look about him, with as little in- 
terest in the crowd as any man might take, and was lounging on 
again, when a most unexpected object caught his eyes. No less an 
object than Jenny Wren's bad boy trying to make i\]} his mind to 
cross the road. 

A more ridiculous and feeble spectacle than this tottering wretch 
making unsteady sallies into the roadway, and as often staggering 
back again, oppressed by terrors of vehicles that were a long way 
off or were nowhere, the streets could not have shown. Over and 
over again, when the course was perfectly clear, he set out, got lialf 
way, described a loop, turned, and went back again, when he might 
have crossed and recrossed half-a-dozen times. Then, he would 
stand shivering on the edge of the pavement, looking up the street 
and looking down, while scores of people jostled him, and crossed, 
and went on. Stimulated in course of time by the sight of so 
many successes, he would make another sally, make another looj^, 
would all but have his foot on the opposite pavement, would see 
or imagine something coming, and would stagger back again. There, 
he would stand making spasmodic preparations as if for a great leap, 
and at last would decide on a start at precisely the wrong moment, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 513 

and would be roared at by drivers, and would shrink back once 
more, and stand in the old spot shivering, with the whole of the 
proceedings to go through again. 

" It strikes me," remarked Eugene coolly, after watching him for 
some minutes, " that my friend is likely to be rather behind time 
if he has any appointment on hand." With which remark he 
strolled on, and took no further thought of him. 

Lightwood was at home when he got to the Chambers, and had 
dined alone there. Eugene drew a chair to the fire by which he 
was having his wine and reading the evening paper, and brought a 
glass, and filled it for good fellowship's sake. 

"My dear Mortimer, you are the express picture of contented 
industry, reposing (on credit) after the virtuous labours of the 
day." 

"My dear Eugene, you are the express picture of discontented 
idleness not reposing at all. Where have you been ? " 

"I have been," replied Wrayburn, " — about town. I have 
turned up at the present juncture, with the intention of consult- 
ing my highly intelligent and respected solicitor on the position of 
my affairs." 

" Your highly intelligent and respected solicitor is of opinion that 
your affairs are in a bad way, Eugene." 

"Though whether," said Eugene thoughtfully, "that can be 
intelligently said, now, of the aff'airs of a client who has nothing to 
lose and who cannot possibly be made to pay, may be open to 
question." 

" You have fallen into the hands of the Jews, Eugene." 

" My dear boy," returned the debtor, very composedly taking up 
his glass, " having previously fallen into the hands of some of the 
Christians, I can bear it with philosophy." 

"I have had an interview to-day, Eugene, with a Jew, who 
seems determined to press us hard. Quite a Shylock, and quite a 
Patriarch. A picturesque grey-headed and grey-bearded old Jew, 
in a shovel-hat and gaberdine." 

" Not," said Eugene, pausing in setting down his glass, " surely 
not my worthy friend Mr. Aaron ? " 

" He calls himself Mr. Riah." 

" By-the-bye," said Eugene, "it comes into my mind that — no 
doubt with an instinctive desire to receive him into the bosom of 
our Church — / gave him the name of Aaron ! " 

"Eugene, Eugene," returned Lightwood, "you are more ridicu- 
lous than usual. Say what you mean." 

" Merely, my dear fellow, that I have the honour and pleasure 
of a speaking acquaintance with such a Patriarch as you describe, 

2l 



514 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

and that I address him as Mr. Aaron, because it appears to me 
Hebraic, expressive, appropriate, and complimentary. Notwith- 
standing which strong reasons for its being his name, it may not 
be his name." 

"I believe you are the absurdest man on the face of the earth," 
said Lightwood, laughing, 

" Not at all, I assure you. Did he mention that he knew me ? " 

" He did not. He only said of you that he expected to be paid 
by you." 

" Which looks," remarked Eugene with much gravity, " like 7iot 
knowing me. 1 hope it may not be my worthy friend Mr. Aaron, 
for, to tell you the truth, Mortimer, I doubt he may have a pre- 
possession against me. I strongly suspect him of having had a 
hand in spiriting away Lizzie." 

"Everything," returned Lightwood impatiently, "seems, by a 
fatality, to bring us round to Lizzie. ' About town ' meant about 
Lizzie, just now, Eugene." 

"My solicitor, do you know," observed Eugene, turning round 
to the furniture, "is a man of infinite discernment." 

" Did it not, Eugene ? " 

" Yes it did, Mortimer." 

"And yet, Eugene, you know you do not really care for her." 

Eugene Wrayburn rose, and put his hands in his pockets, and 
stood with a foot on the fender, indolently rocking his body and 
looking at the fire. After a prolonged pause, he replied : "I don't 
know that. I must ask you not to say that, as if we took it for 
granted." 

" But if you do care for her, so much the more should you leave 
her to herself" 

Having again paused as before, Eugene said : "I don't know 
that, either. But tell me. Did you ever see me take so much 
trouble about anything, as about this disappearance of hers? I 
ask, for information." 

"My dear Eugene, I wish I ever had ! " 

" Then you have not ? Just so. You confirm my own impres- 
sion. Does that look as if I cared for her ? I ask, for information." 

"I asked you for information, Eugene," said Mortimer, reproach- 
fully. 

"Dear boy, I know it, but I can't give it. I thirst for informa- 
tion. What do I mean ? If my taking so much trouble to recover 
her does not mean that I care for her, what does it mean ? ' If 
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck,' 
&c.?" 

Though he said this gaily, he said it with a perplexed and inquisi- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 615 

tive face, as if he actually did not know what to make of himself, 
" Look on to the end — " Lightwood was beginning to remonstrate, 
when he caught at the words : 

" Ah ! See now ! That's exactly what I am incapable of doing. 
How very acute you are, Mortimer, in finding my weak place ! 
When we were at school together, I got up my lessons at the last 
moment, day by day and bit by bit ; now we are out in life to- 
gether, I get up my lessons in the same way. In the present task 
I have not got beyond this : — I am bent on finding Lizzie, and I 
mean to find her, and I will take any means of finding her that 
offer themselves. Fair means or foul means, are all alike to me. 
I ask you — for information — what does that mean? When I 
have found her I may ask you — also for information — what do I 
mean now 1 But it would be premature in this stage, and it's not 
the character of my mind." 

Lightwood was shaking his head over the air with which his 
friend held forth thus — an air so whimsically open and argumenta- 
tive as almost to deprive what he said of the appearance of evasion 
— when a shuffling was heard at the outer door, and then an unde- 
cided knock, as though some hand were groping for the knocker, 

"The frolicsome youth of the neighbourhood," said Eugene, 
" whom I should be delighted to pitch from this elevation into the 
churchyard below, without any intermediate ceremonies, have prob- 
ably turned the lamp out. I am on duty to-night, and will see to 
the door." 

His friend had barely had time to recall the unprecedented gleam 
of determination with which he had spoken of finding this girl, and 
which had faded out of him with the breath of the spoken words, 
when Eugene came back, ushering in a most disgraceful shadow of 
a man, shaking from head to foot, and clothed in shabby grease 
and smear. 

" This interesting gentleman," said Eugene, "is the son — the 
occasionally rather trying son, for he has his failings — of a lady of 
my acquaintance. My dear Mortimer — Mr. Dolls." Eugene had 
no idea what his name was, knowing the little dressmaker's to be 
assumed, but presented him with easy confidence under the first 
appellation that his associations suggested. 

" I gather, my dear Mortimer," pursued Eugene, as Lightwood 
stared at the obscene visitor, " from the manner of Mr. Dolls — 
which is occasionally complicated — that he desires to make some 
communication to me. I have mentioned to Mr. Dolls that you 
and I are on terms of confidence, and have requested Mr. Dolls to 
develop his views here." 

The wretched object being much embarrassed by holding what 



516 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

remained of his hat, Eugene airily tossed it to the door, and put 
him down in a chair. 

"It will benecessaiy, I think," he observed, "to wind up Mr. 
Dolls, before anything to any mortal purpose can be got out of 
him. Brandy, Mr. Dolls, or — ?" 

" Threepenn'orth Rum," said Mr. Dolls. 

A judiciously small quantity of the spirit was given him in a 
wine-glass, and he began to convey it to his mouth, with all kinds 
of falterings and gyrations on the road. 

"The nerves of Mr. Dolls," remarked Eugene to Lightwood, 
" are considerably unstrung. And I deem it on the whole expedi- 
ent to fumigate Mr. Dolls." 

He took the shovel from the grate, sprinkled a few live ashes on 
it, and from a box on the chimney-piece took a few pastiles, which 
he set upon them; then, with great composure, began placidly 
waving the shovel in front of Mr. Dolls, to cut him off from his 
company. 

" Lord bless my soul, Eugene ! " cried Lightwood, laughing again, 
" what a mad fellow you are ! Why does this creature come to see 
you?" 

"We shall hear," said Wrayburn, very observant of his face 
withal. " Now then. Speak out. Don't be afraid. State your 
business, Dolls." 

" Mist Wrayburn ! " said the visitor, thickly and huskily. 
" — 'Tis Mist Wrayburn, ain't 1 " With a stupid stare. 

" Of course it is. Look at me. What do you want 1 " 

Mr. Dolls collapsed in his chair, and faintly said " Threepenn- 
'orth Rum." 

" Will you do me the favour, my dear Mortimer, to wind up Mr. 
Dolls again 1 " said Eugene. " I am occupied with the fumigation." 

A similar quantity was poured into his glass, and he got it to his 
lips by similar circuitous ways. Having drunk it, Mr. Dolls, with 
an evident fear of running down again unless he made haste, pro- 
ceeded to business. 

"Mist Wrayburn. Tried to nudge you, but you wouldn't. 
You want that drection. You want t'know where she lives. Do 
you. Mist Wrayburn 1 " 

With a glance at his friend, Eugene replied to the question, 
sternly, " I do." 

" I am er man," said Mr. Dolls, trying to smite himself on the 
breast, but bringing his hand to bear upon the vicinity of his eye, 
" er do it. I am er man er do it." 

" What are you the man to do ? " demanded Eugene, still sternly. 

"Er give up that drection." 



518 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Have you got it ? " 

With a most laborious attempt at pride and dignity, Mr. Dolls 
rolled his head for some time, awakening the highest expectations, 
and then answered, as if it were the happiest point that could pos- 
sibly be expected of him : " No." 

" What do you mean then ? " 

Mr. Dolls, collapsing in the drowsiest manner after his late intel- 
lectual triumph, replied : " Threepenn'orth Rum." 

"Wind him up again, my dear Mortimer," said Wrayburn; 
" wind him up again." 

"Eugene, Eugene," urged Lightwood in a low voice, as he com- 
plied, " can you stoop to the use of such an instrument as this ? " 

"I said," was the reply, made with that former gleam of deter- 
mination, " that I would find her out by any means, fair or foul. 
These are foul, and I'll take them — if I am not first tempted to 
break the head of Mr. Dolls with the fumigator. Can you get the 
direction 1 Do you mean that ? Speak ! If that's what you have 
come for, say how much you want." 

" Ten shillings — Threepenn'orth's Rum," said Mr. Dolls. 

" You shall have it." 

"Fifteen shillings — Threepenn'orth's Rum," said Mr. Dolls, 
making an attempt to stiffen himself 

"You shall have it. Stop at that. How will you get the 
direction you talk of?" 

"I am er man," said Mr. Dolls, with majesty, "er get it, sir." 

" How will you get it, I ask you ? " 

"I am ill-used vidual," said Mr. Dolls. " Blown up morning 
t'night. Called names. She makes Mint money, sir, and never 
stands Threepenn'orth Rum." 

" Get on," rejoined Eugene, tapping his palsied head with the 
fire-shovel, as it sank on his breast. "What comes next?" 

Making a dignified attempt to gather himself together, but, as it 
were, dropping half-a-dozen pieces of himself while he tried in vain 
to pick up one, Mr. Dolls, swaying his head from side to side, re- 
garded his questioner with what he supposed to be a haughty smile 
and a scornful glance. 

" She looks upon me as mere child, sir. I am not mere child, 
sir. Man. Man talent. Lerrers pass betwixt 'em. Postman 
lerrers. Easy for man talent er get drection, as get his own drec- 
tion." 

"Get it then," said Eugene; adding very heartily under his 
breath, " — You Brute ! Get it, and bring it here to me, and earn 
the money for sixty threepenn'orth's of rum, and drink them all, 
one a top of another, and drink yourself dead with all possible 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 519 

expedition." The latter clauses of these special instructions he 
addressed to the fire, as he gave it back the ashes he had taken 
from it, and replaced the shovel, 

Mr. Dolls now struck out the highly unexpected discovery that 
he had been insulted by Liglitwood, and stated his desire to " have 
it out with him " on the spot, and defied him to come on, upon the 
liberal terms of a sovereign to a halfpenny. Mr. Dolls then fell 
a crying, and then exhibited a tendency to fall asleep. This last 
manifestation as by far the most alarming, by reason of its threat- 
ening his prolonged stay on the premises, necessitated vigorous 
measures. Eugene picked up his worn-out hat with the tongs, 
clapped it on his head, and, taking him by the collar — all this at 
arm's length — conducted him down-stairs and out of the precincts 
into Fleet Street. There, he turned his face westward, and left him. 

When he got back, Lightwood was standing over the fire, brood- 
ing in a sufficiently low-spirited manner. 

" I'll wash my hands of Mr. Dolls — physically — " said Eugene, 
"and be with you again directly, Mortimer." 

"I would much prefer," retorted Mortimer, "your washing your 
hands of Mr. Dolls, morally, Eugene." 

"So would I," said Eugene; "but you see, dear boy, I can't do 
without him." 

In a minute or two he resumed his chair, as perfectly unconcerned 
as usual, and rallied his friend on having so narrowly escaped the 
prowess of their muscular visitor. 

"I can't be amused on this theme," said Mortimer, restlessly. 
" You can make almost any theme amusing to me, Eugene, but not 
this." 

"Well," cried Eugene, "I am a little ashamed of it myself, and 
therefore let us change the subject." 

"It is so deplorably underhanded," said Mortimer. "It is so 
unworthy of you, this setting on of such a shameful scout." 

"We have changed the subject!" exclaimed Eugene, airily. 
" We have found a new one in that word, scout. Don't be like 
Patience on a mantelpiece frowning at Dolls, but sit down, and I'll 
tell you something that you really will find amusing. Take a cigar. 
Look at this of mine. I light it — draw one puff — breathe the 
smoke out — there it goes — it's Dolls ! — it's gone, and being gone, 
you are a man again." 

"Your subject," said Mortimer, after lighting a cigar, and comfort- 
ing himself with a whiff or two, " was scouts, Eugene." 

" Exactly. Isn't it droll that I never go out after dark, but I 
find myself attended, always by one scout, and often by two ? " 

Lightwood took his cigar from his lips in surprise, and looked 



620 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

at his friend, as if with a latent suspicion that there must be a jest 
or hidden meaning in his words. 

"On my honour, no," said Wrayburn, answering the look and 
smiling carelessly ; "I don't wonder at your supposing so, but on 
my honour, no. I say what I mean. I never go out after dark, 
but I find myself in the ludicrous situation of being followed and 
observed at a distance, always by one scout, and often by two." 

" Are you sure, Eugene 1 " ' 

" Sure ? My dear boy, they are always the same." 

" But there's no process out against you. The Jews only 
threaten. They have done nothing. Besides, they know where to 
find you, and I represent you. Why take the trouble 1 " 

" Observe the legal mind ! " remarked Eugene, turning round to 
the furniture again, with an air of indolent rapture. " Observe the 
dyer's hand, assimilating itself to what it works in, — or would 
work in, if anybody would give it anything to do. Respected solic- 
itor, it's not that. The schoolmaster's abroad." 

" The schoolmaster ? " 

"Ay! Sometimes the schoolmaster and the pupil are both 
abroad. Why, how soon you rust in my absence ! You don't 
understand yet 1 Those fellows who were here one night. They 
are the scouts I speak of as doing me the honour to attend me 
after dark." 

" How long has this been going on ? " asked Lightwood, oppos- 
ing a serious face to the laugh of his friend. 

" I apprehend it has been going on ever since a certain person 
went off. Probably, it had been going on some little time before I 
noticed it; which would bring it to about that time." 

" Do you think they suppose you to have inveigled her away ? " 

"My dear Mortimer, you know the absorbing nature of my 
professional occupations; I really have not had leisure to think 
about it." 

"Have you asked them what they want? Have you objected?" 

"Why should I ask them what they want, dear fellow, when 
I am indifferent what they want ? Why should I express objec- 
tion, when I don't object ? " 

" You are in your most reckless mood. But you called the sit- 
uation just now, a ludicrous one ; and most men object to that, 
even those who are utterly indifferent to everything else." 

" You charm me, Mortimer, with your reading of my weaknesses. 
(By-thc-bye, that very word, Reading, in its critical use, always 
charms me. An actress's Reading of a chamber-maid, a dancer's 
Reading of a hornpipe, a singer's Reading of a song, a marine- 
painter's Reading of the sea, the kettle-drum's Reading of an instru- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 521 

mental passage, are phrases ever youthful and delightful.) I was 
mentioning your perception of my weaknesses. I own to the weak- 
ness of objecting to occupy a ludicrous position, and therefore I 
transfer the position to the scouts." 

"I wish, Eugene, you would speak a little more soberly and 
plainly, if it were only out of consideration for my feeling less at 
ease than you do." 

" Then soberly and plainly, Mortimer, I goad the schoolmaster 
to madness. I make the schoolmaster so ridiculous, and so aware 
of being made ridiculous, that I see him chafe and fret at every 
pore when we cross one another. The amiable occupation has been 
the solace of my life, since I was baulked in the manner unnecessary 
to recall. I have derived inexpressible comfort from it. I do it 
thus : I stroll out after dark, stroll a little way, look in at a 
window and furtively look out for the schoolmaster. Sooner or 
later, I perceive the schoolmaster on the watch ; sometimes accom- 
panied by his hopeful pupil ; oftener pupil-less. Having made sure 
of his watching me, I tempt him on, all over London. One night 
I go east, another night north, in a few nights I go all round the 
compass. Sometimes, I walk; sometimes, I proceed in cabs, 
draining the pocket of the schoolmaster, who then follows in cabs. 
I study and get up abstruse No Thoroughfares in the course of the 
day. With Venetian mystery I seek those No Thoroughfares at 
night, glide into them by means of dark courts, tempt the school- 
master to follow, turn suddenly, and catch him before he can retreat. 
Then we face one another, and I pass him as unaware of his exist- 
ence, and he undergoes grinding torments. Similarly, I walk at 
a great pace down a short street, rapidly turn the corner, and, get- 
ting out of his view, as rapidly turn back. I catch him coming 
on post, again pass him as unaware of his existence, and again he 
undergoes grinding torments. Night after night his disappoint- 
ment is acute, but hope springs eternal in the scholastic breast, 
and he follows me again to-morrow. Thus I enjoy the pleasures 
of the chase, and derive great benefit from the healthful exercise. 
When I do not enjoy the pleasures of the chase, for anything I 
know he watches at the Temple gate all night." 

"This is an extraordinary story," observed Light wood, who had 
heard it out with serious attention. " I don't like it." 

"You are a little hipped, dear fellow," said Eugene ; "you have 
been too sedentary. Come and enjoy the pleasures of the chase." 

" Do you mean that you believe he is watching now ? " 

" I have not the slightest doubt he is." 

" Have you seen him to-night ? " 

" I forgot to look for him when I was last out," returned Eugene, 



522 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

with the calmest indifference; "but I dare say he was there. 
Come ! Be a British sportsman, and enjoy the pleasures of the 
chase. It will do you good." 

Lightwood hesitated ; but, yielding to his curiosity, rose. 

"Bravo!" cried Eugene, rising too. "Or, if Yoicks would be 
in better keeping, consider that I said Yoicks. Look to your feet, 
Mortimer, for we shall try your boots. When you are ready I am 
— need I say with a Hey Ho Chivy, and likewise with a Hark 
Forward, Hark Forward, Tantivy 1 " 

" Will nothing make you serious ? " said Mortimer, laughing 
through his gravity. 

"I am always serious, but just now I am a little excited by the 
glorious fact that a southerly wind and a cloudy sky proclaim a 
hunting evening. Ready ? So. We turn out the lamp and shut 
the door, and take the field." 

As the two friends passed out of the Temple into the public 
street, Eugene demanded with a show of courteous patronage in 
which direction Mortimer would like the run to be ? " There is 
a rather difficult country about Bethnal Green," said Eugene, 
" and we have not taken in that direction lately. What is your 
opinion of Bethnal G-reen ? " Mortimer assented to Bethnal Green, 
and they turned eastward. " Now, when we come to St. Paul's 
churchyard," pursued Eugene, " we'll loiter artfully, and I'll show 
you the schoolmaster." But, they both saw him, before they got 
there ; alone, and stealing after them in the shadow of the houses, 
on the opposite side of the way. 

" Get your wind," said Eugene, "for I am off directly. Does 
it occur to you that the boys of Merry England will begin to 
deteriorate in an educational light, if this lasts long ? The school- 
master can't attend to me and the boys too. Got your wind ? I 
am off!" 

At what a rate he went, to breathe the schoolmaster ; and how 
he then lounged and loitered, to put his patience to another kind 
of wear ; what preposterous ways he took, with no other object on 
earth than to tlisappoint and punish him ; and how he wore him 
out by every piece of ingenuity that his eccentric humour could 
devise ; all this Lightwood noted, with a feeling of astonishment 
that so careless a man could be so wary, and that so idle a man 
could take so much trouble. At last, far on in the third hour of 
the pleasures of the chase, when he had brought the poor dogging 
wretch round again into the City, he twisted Mortimer up a few 
dark entries, twisted him into a little square court, twisted him 
sharp round again, and they almost ran against Bradley Headstone. 

"And you see, as I was saying, Mortimer," remarked Eugene 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 523 

aloud, with the utmost coolness, as though there were no one 
within hearing but themselves : " and you see, as I was saying — 
undergoing grinding torments." 

It was not too strong a phrase for the occasion. Looking like 
the hunted, and not the hunter, baffled, worn, with the exhaustion 
of deferred hope and consuming hate and anger in his face, white- 
lipped, wild-eyed, draggle-haired, seamed with jealousy and anger, 
and torturing himself with the conviction that he showed it all and 
they exulted in it, he went by them in the dark, like a haggard 
head suspended in the air : so completely did the force of his 
expression cancel his figure. 

Mortimer Lightwood was not an extraordinarily impressible man, 
but this face impressed him. He spoke of it more than once 
on the remainder of the way home, and more than once when they 
got home. 

They had been abed in their respective rooms two or three 
hours, when Eugene was partly awakened by hearing a footstep 
going about, and was fully awakened by seeing Lightwood stand- 
ing at his bedside. 

" Nothing, wrong, Mortimer ? " 

"No." 

" What fancy takes you, then, for walking about in the night ? " 

" I am horribly wakeful." 

" How comes that about, I wonder ? " 

" Eugene, I cannot lose sight of that fellow's face." 

" Odd," said Eugene, with a light laugh, " / can." And turned 
over, and fell asleep again. 



CHAPTER XL 

IN THE DARK. 

Theee was no sleep for Bradley Headstone on that night when 
Eugene Wrayburn turned so easily in his bed ; there was no sleep 
for little Miss Peecher. Bradley consumed the lonely hours, and 
consumed himself, in haunting the spot where his careless rival lay 
a dreaming ; little Miss Peecher wore them away in listening for 
the return home of the master of her heart, and in sorrowfully 
presaging that much was amiss with him. Yet more was amiss 
with him than Miss Peecher's simply arranged little work-box of 
thoughts, fitted with no gloomy and dark recesses, could hold. 
For, the state of the man was murderous. 

The state of the man was murderous, and he knew it. More ; 



524 OUR MUTUAL ERIEND. 

he irritated it, with a kind of perverse pleasure akin to that which 
a sick man sometimes has in irritating a wound upon his body. 
Tied up all day with his disciplined show upon him, subdued to 
the performance of his routine of educational tricks, encircled by a 
gabbling crowd, he broke loose at night like an ill-tamed wild 
animal. Under his daily restraint, it was his compensation, not 
his trouble, to give a glance towards his state at night, and to the 
freedom of its being indulged. If great criminals told the truth 
— which, being great criminals, they do not — they would very 
rarely tell of their struggles against the crime. Their struggles 
are towards it. They buffet with opposing waves, to gain the 
bloody shore, not to recede from it. This man perfectly compre- 
hended that he hated his rival with his strongest and worst forces, 
and that if he tracked him to Lizzie Hexam, his so doing would 
never serve himself with her, or serve her. All his pains were 
taken, to the end that he might incense himself with the sight of 
the detested figure in her company and favour, in her place of 
concealment. And he knew as well what act of his would 
follow if he did, as he knew that his mother had borne him. 
Granted, that he may not have held it necessary to make express 
mention to himself of the one familiar truth any more than of the 
other. 

He knew equally well that he fed his wrath and hatred, and that 
he accumulated provocation and self-justification, by being made the 
nightly sport of the reckless and insolent Eugene. Knowing all 
this, and still always going on with infinite endurance, pains, and 
perseverance, could his dark soul doubt whither he went 1 

Baffled, exasperated, and weary, he lingered opposite the Temple 
gate when it closed on Wrayburn and Light wood, debating with 
himself should he go home for that time or should he watch longer. 
Possessed in his jealousy by the fixed idea that Wrayburn was in 
the secret, if it were not altogether of his contriving, Bradley was 
as confident of getting the better of him at last by sullenly sticking 
to him, as he would have been — and often had been — of mastering 
any piece of study in the way of his vocation, by the like slow 
persistent process. A man of rapid passions and sluggish intelli- 
gence, it had served him often and should serve him again. 

The suspicion crossed him as he rested in a doorway with his 
eyes upon the Temple gate, that perhaps she was even concealed in 
that set of Chambers. It would furnish another reason for Wray- 
burn's purposeless walks, and it might be. He thought of it and 
thought of it, until he resolved to steal up the stairs, if the gate- 
keeper would let him through, and listen. So, the haggard head 
suspended in the air flitted across the road, like the spectre of one 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 525 

of the many heads erst hoisted upon neighbouring Temple Bar, and 
stopped before the watchman. 

The watchman looked at it, and asked : " Who for? " 

" Mr. Wrayburn." 

" It's very late." 

" He came back with Mr. Lightwood, I know, near upon two 
hours ago. But if he has gone to bed, I'll put a paper in his letter- 
box. I am expected." 

The watchman said no more, but opened the gate, though rather 
doubtfully. Seeing, however, that the visitor went straight and 
fast in the right direction, he seemed satisfied. 

The haggard head floated up the dark staircase, and softly 
descended nearer to the floor outside the outer door of the chambers. 
The doors of the rooms within appeared to be standing open. 
There were rays of candlelight from one of them, and there was 
the sound of a footstep going about. There were two voices. 
The words they uttered were not distinguishable, but they were 
both the voices of men. In a few moments the voices were silent, 
and there was no sound of footstep, and the inner light went out. 
If Lightwood could have seen the face which kept him awake, star- 
ing and listening in the darkness outside the door as he spoke of it, 
he might have been less disposed to sleep through the remainder 
of the night. 

"Not there," said Bradley, "but she might have been." The 
head arose to its former height from the ground, floated down the 
staircase again, and passed on to the gate. A man was standing 
there in parley with the watchman. 

" Oh ! " said the watchman. " Here he is ! " 

Perceiving himself to be the antecedent, Bradley looked from 
the watchman to the man. 

" This man is leaving a letter for Mr. Lightwood," the watchman 
explained, showing it in his hand ; "and I was mentioning that a 
person had just gone up to Mr. Lightwood's chambers. It might 
be the same business perhaps 1 " 

" No," said Bradley, glancing at the man, who was a stranger to 
him. 

" No," the man assented in a surly way ; " my letter — it's wrote 
by my daughter, but it's mine — it's about my business, and my 
business ain't nobody else's business." 

As Bradley passed out of the gate with an undecided foot, he 
heard it shut behind him, and heard the footstep of the man com- 
ing after him. 

" 'Sense me," said the man, who appeared to have been drink- 
ing, and rather stumbled at him than touched him, to attract 



526 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

his attention; "but might you be acquainted with the T'other 
Governor 1 " 

" With whom ? " asked Bradley. 

"With," returned the man, pointing backward over his right 
shoulder with his right thumb, " the T'other Governor ? " 

"I don't know what you mean." 

" Why look here," hooking his proposition on his left-hand fingers 
with the forefinger of his right. " There's two Governors, ain't 
there ? One and one, two — Lawyer Lightwood, my first finger, 
he's one, ain't he? Well; might you be acquainted with my 
middle finger, the T'other?" 

" I know quite as much of him," said Bradley, with a frown and 
a distant look before him, "as I want to know." 

" Hooroar ! " cried the man. " Hooroar T'other T'other Governor. 
Hooroar T'otherest Governor ! I am of your way of thinkin'." 

"Don't make such a noise at this dead hour of the night. 
What are you talking about?" 

" Look here, T'otherest Governor," replied the man, becoming 
hoarsely confidential. " The T'other Governor he's always joked his 
jokes agin me, owing as / believe, to my being a honest man as gets 
my living by the sweat of my brow. Which he ain't, and he don't." 

'•What is that to me?" 

"T'otherest Governor," returned the man in a tone of injured 
innocence, " if you don't care to hear no more, don't hear no more. 
You begun it. You said, and likewise showed pretty plain, as you 
warn't by no means friendly to him. But I don't seek to force my 
company nor yet my opinions on no man. I am a honest man, 
that's what I am. Put me in the dock anywhere — I don't care 
■where — and I says, 'My Lord, I am a honest man.' Put me in 
the witness-box anywhere — I don't care where — and I says the 
same to his lordship, and I kisses the book. I don't kiss my coat- 
cuff; I kisses the book." 

It was not so much in deference to these strong testimonials to 
character, as in his restless casting about for any way or help 
towards the discovery on which he was concentrated, that Bradley 
Headstone replied : " You needn't take offence. I didn't mean to 
stop you. You were too loud in the open street ; that was all." 

" T'otherest Governor," replied Mr. Riderhood, mollified and mys- 
terious, " I know wot it is to be loud, and I know wot it is to be 
soft. Nat'rally I do. It would be a wonder if I did not, being by 
the Chris'en name of Roger, which took it arter my own fother, 
which took it from his own father, though which of our fam'ly fust 
took it nat'ral I will not in any ways mislead you by undertakin' 
to say. And wishing that your elth maybe better than your 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 527 

looks, which your inside must be bad indeed if it's on the footing of 
your out." 

Startled by the implication that his face revealed too much of 
his mind, Bradley made an effort to clear his brow. It might be 
worth knowing what this strange man's business was with Light- 
wood, or Wrayburn, or both, at such an unseasonable hour. He 
set himself to find out, for the man might prove to be a messen- 
ger between those two. 

"You call at the Temple late," he remarked, with a lumbering 
show of ease. 

"Wish I may die," cried Mr. Kiderhood, with a hoarse laugh, "if 
I warn't a goin' to say the self-same words to you, T'otherest 
Governor ! " 

" It chanced so with me," said Bradley, looking disconcertedly 
about him. 

"And it chanced so with me," said Riderhood. "But I don't 
mind telling you how. Why should I mind telling you ? I'm a 
Deputy Lock-keeper up the river, and I was off duty yes'day, and 
I shall be on to-morrow." 

"Yes?" 

"Yes, and I come to London to look arter my private affairs. 
My private affairs is to get appinted to the Lock as reg'lar keeper 
at fust hand, and to have the law of a Busted B'low-Bridge steamer 
which drownded of me. I ain't a goin' to be drownded and not 
paid for it ! " 

Bradley looked at him, as though he were claiming to be a 
Ghost. 

" The Steamer," said Mr. Riderhood, obstinately, " run me down 
and drownded of me. Interference on the part of other parties 
brought me round ; but I never asked 'em to bring me round, 
nor yet the steamer never asked 'em to it. I mean to be paid 
for the life as the steamer took." 

" Was that your business at Mr. Lightwood's chambers in the 
middle of the night?" asked Bradley, eyeing him with distrust. 

" That, and to get a writing to be fust-hand Lock-keeper. A 
recommendation in writing being looked for, who else ought to 
give it to me ? As I says in the letter in my daughter's hand, 
with my mark put to it to make it good in law. Who but 
you. Lawyer Lightwood, ought to hand over this here stifficate, 
and who but you ought to go in for damages on my account 
agin the Steamer? For (as I says under my.' mark) I have had 
trouble enough along of you and your friend. If you, Lawyer 
Lightwood, had backed me good and true, and if the T'other 
Governor had took me down correct (I says under my mark), I 



628 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

should have been worth money at the present time, instead of 
having a barge-load of bad names chucked at me, and being 
forced to eat my words, which is a unsatisfying sort of food, 
wotever a man's appetite ! And when you mention the middle 
of the night, T'otherest Governor," growled Mr. Riderhood, wind- 
ing up his monotonous summary of his wrongs, " throw your eye 
on this here bundle under my arm, and bear in mind that I'm 
a walking back to my Lock, and that the Temple laid upon my 
line of road." 

Bradley Headstone's face had changed during this latter recital, 
and he had observed the speaker with a more sustained attention. 

"Do you know," said he, after a pause, during which they 
walked on side by side, "that I believe I could tell you your 
name, if I tried?" 

" Prove your opinion," was the answer, accompanied with a stop 
and a stare. " Try." 

" Your name is Riderhood." 

"I'm blest if it ain't," returned that gentleman. "But I don't 
know your'n." 

" That's quite another thing," said Bradley. "I never supposed 
you did." 

As Bradley walked on meditating, the Rogue walked on at his 
side muttering. The purport of the muttering was : " That Rogue 
Riderhood, by George ! seemed to be made public property on, now, 
and that every | man seemed to think himself free to handle his 
name as if it was a Street Pump." The purport of the meditating 
was : " Here is an instrument. Can I use it ? " 

They had walked along the Strand, and into Pall Mall and had 
turned up-hill towards Hyde Park Corner; Bradley Headstone 
waiting on the pace and lead of Riderhood, and leaving him to 
indicate the course. So slow were the schoolmaster's thoughts, 
and so indistinct his purposes when they were but tributary to the 
one absorbing purpose — or rather when, like dark trees under 
a stormy sky, they only lined the long vista at the end of which 
he saw those two figures of Wrayburn and Lizzie on which his 
eyes were fixed — that at least a good half-mile was traversed be- 
fore he spoke again. Even then, it was only to ask : 

" Where is your Lock 1 " 

" Twenty mile and odd — call it five-and-twenty mile and odd, 
if you like — up stream," was the sullen reply. 

"How is it called?" 

" Plashwater Weir Mill Lock." 

" Suppose I was to ofi'er you five shillings ; what then ? " 

"Why, then, I'd take it," said Mr. Riderhood. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 529 

The schoolmaster put his hand in his pocket, and produced 
two half-crowns, and placed them in Mr. Riderhood's palm : who 
stopped at a convenient doorstep to ring them both, before ac- 
knowledging their receipt. 

"There's one thing about you, T'otherest Governor," said Rider- 
hood, faring on again, "as looks well and goes fur. You're a 
ready-money man. Now ; " when he had carefully pocketed the 
coins on that side of himself which was furthest from his new 
friend; "what's this for?" 

" For you." 

" Why, o' course I know that" said Riderhood, as arguing 
something that was self-evident. "0' course I know very well 
as no man in his right senses would suppose as anythink would 
make me give it up agin when I'd once got it. But what do you 
want for it ? " 

" I don't know that I want anything for it. Or if I do want 
anything for it, I don't know what it is." Bradley gave this 
answer in a stolid, vacant, and self-communing manner, which 
Mr. Riderhood found very extraordinary. 

"You have no goodwill towards this Wrayburn," said Bradley, 
coming to the name in a reluctant and forced way, as if he were 
dragged to it. 

"No." 

" Neither have I." 

Riderhood nodded, and asked : " Is it for that 1 " 

" It's as much for that as anything else. It's something to be 
agreed with, on a subject that occupies so much of one's thoughts." 

"It don't agree with you,'" returned Mr. Riderhood, bluntly. 
" No ! It don't, T'otherest Governor, and it's no use a lookin' 
as if you wanted to make out that it did. I tell you it rankles in 
you. It rankles in you, rusts in you, and pisons you." 

" Say that it does so," returned Bradley, with quivering lips ; 
" is there no cause for it ? " 

" Cause enough, I'll bet a pound ! " cried Mr. Riderhood. 

"Haven't you yourself declared that the fellow has heaped 
provocation, insults, and affronts on you, or something to that 
effect? He has done the same by me. He is made of venomous 
insults and affronts, from the crown of his head to the sole of his 
foot. Are you so hopeful or so stupid, as not to know that he 
jxud the other will treat your application with contempt, and light 
their cigars with it ? " 

" I shouldn't wonder if they did, by George," said Riderhood, 
turning angry, 

" If they did ! They will. Let me ask you a question. I 

2m 



530 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

know something more than your name about you ; I knew some- 
thing about Gaffer Hexam. When did you last set eyes upon 
his daughter ? " 

" When did I last set eyes upon his daughter, T'otherest 
Governor ? " repeated Mr. Riderhood, growing intentionally slower 
of comprehension as the other quickened in his speech. 

" Yes. Not to speak to her. To see her — anywhere ? " 

The Rogue had got the clue he wanted, though he held it with 
a clumsy hand. Looking perplexedly at the passionate face, 
as if he were trying to work out a sum in his mind, he slowly 
answered : " I ain't set eyes upon her — never once — not since 
the day of Gaffer's death." 

" You know her well, by sight ? " 

" I should think I did ! No one better." 

" And you know him as well ? " 

" Who's him 1 " asked Riderhood, taking off his hat and rubbing 
his forehead, as he directed a dull look at his questioner. 

" Curse the name ! Is it so agreeable to you that you want to 
hear it again ? " 

" Oh ! Him / " said Riderhood, who had craftily worked the 
schoolmaster into this corner, that he might again take note of his 
face under its evil possession. " I'd know him among a thousand." 

" Did you " Bradley tried to ask it quietly ; but, do what 

he might with his voice, he could not subdue his face ; — " did you 
ever see them together 1 " 

(The Rogue had got the clue in both hands now.) 

"I see 'em together, T'otherest Governor, on the very day when 
Gaffer was towed ashore." 

Bradley could have hidden a reserved piece of information from 
the sharp eyes of a whole inquisitive class, but he could not veil 
from the eyes of the ignorant Riderhood the withheld question 
next in his breast. " You shall put it plain if you want it an- 
swered," thought the Rogue doggedly ; "I ain't a going a wolun- 
teering." 

" Well ! was he insolent to her too ? " asked Bradley after a 
struggle. " Or did he make a show of being kind to her 1 " 

" He made a show of being most uncommon kind to her," said 
Riderhood. " By George ! now I " 

His flying off at a tangent was indisputably natural. Bradley 
looked at him for the reason. 

"Now I think of it," said Mr. Riderhood, evasively, for he was 
substituting those words for "Now I see you so jealous," which 
was the phrase really in his mind ; " p'r'aps he went and took me 
down wrong, a purpose, on account o' being sweet upon her ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 531 

The baseness of confirming him in this suspicion or pretence of 
one (for he could not have really entertained it), was a line's 
breadth beyond the mark the schoolmaster had reached. The 
baseness of communing and intriguing with the fellow who would 
have set that stain upon her, and upon her brother too, was at- 
tained. The line's breadth further, lay beyond. He made no 
reply, but walked on with a lowering face. 

What he might gain by this acquaintance, he could not work 
out in his slow and cumbrous thoughts. The man had an injury 
against the object of his hatred, and that was something ; though 
it was less than he supposed, for there dwelt in the man no such 
deadly rage and resentment as burned in his own breast. The 
man knew her, and might, by a fortunate chance, see her, or hear 
of her ; that was something, as enlisting one pair of eyes and ears 
the more. The man was a bad man, and willing enough to be in 
his pay. That was something, for his own state and purpose were 
as bad as bad could be, and he seemed to derive a vague support 
from the possession of a congenial instrument, though it might 
never be used. 

Suddenly he stood still, and asked Riderhood point-blank if he 
knew where she was? Clearly, he did not know. He asked 
Riderhood if he would be willing, in case any intelligence of her, 
or of Wrayburn as seeking her or associating with her, should fall 
in his way, to communicate it if it were paid for ? He would be 
very willing indeed. He was "agin 'em both," he said with an 
oath, and for why ? 'Cause they had both stood betwixt him and 
his getting his living by the sweat of his brow. 

"It will not be long then," said Bradley Headstone, after some 
more discourse to this effect, "before we see one another again. 
Here is the country road, and here is the day. Both have come 
upon me by surprise." 

"But, T'otherest Governor," urged Mr. Riderhood, "I don't 
know where to find you." 

" It is of no consequence. I know where to find you, and I'll 
come to your Lock." 

"But, T'otherest Governor," urged Mr. Riderhood again, "no 
luck never come yet of a dry acquaintance. Let's wet it in a 
mouthful of rum and milk, T'otherest Governor." 

Bradley assenting, went with him into an early public-house, 
haunted by unsavoury smells of musty hay and stale straw, where 
returning carts, farmers' men, gaunt dogs, fowls of a beery breed, and 
certain luunan night-birds fluttering home to roost, were solacing 
themselves after their several manners ; and where not one of the 
night-birds hovering about the sloppy bar failed to discern at a 



532 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

glance in the passion-wasted night-bird with respectable feathers, 
the worst night-bird of all. 

An inspiration of affection for a half-drunken carter going his 
way led to Mr. Riderhood's being elevated on a high heap of bas- 
kets on a waggon, and pursuing his journey recumbent on his back 
with his head on his bundle. Bradley then turned to retrace his 
steps, and by-and-bye struck off through little-traversed ways, and 
by-and-bye reached school and home. Up came the sun to find 
him washed and brushed, methodically dressed in decent black coat 
and waistcoat, decent formal black tie, and pepper and salt panta- 
loons, with his decent silver watch in its pocket, and its decent 
hair guard round his neck : a scholastic huntsman clad for the 
field, with his fresh pack yelping and barking around him. 

Yet more really bewitched than the miserable creatures of the 
much-lamented times, who accused themselves of impossibilities 
under a contagion of horror and the strongly suggestive influences 
of Torture, he had been ridden hard by Evil Spirits in the night 
that was newly gone. He had been spurred and whipped and 
heavily sweated. If a record of the sport had usurped the places 
of peaceful texts from Scripture on the wall, the most advanced 
of the scholars might have taken fright and run away from the 
master. 



CHAPTER XII. 

MEANING MISCHIEF. 

Up came the sun, streaming all over London, and in its glorious 
impartiality even condescending to make prismatic sparkles in the 
whiskers of Mr. Alfred Lammle as he sat at breakfast. In need 
of some brightening from without was Mr. Alfred Lammle, for he 
had the air of being dull enough within, and looked grievously 
discontented. 

Mrs. Alfred Lammle faced her lord. The happy pair of swin- 
dlers, with the comfortable tie between them that each had swindled 
the other, sat moodily observant of the tablecloth. Things looked 
so gloomy in the breakfast-room, albeit on the sunny side of Sack- 
ville Street, that any of the family tradespeople glancing through 
the blinds might have taken the hint to send in his account and 
press for it. But this, indeed, most of the family tradespeople 
had already done, without the hint. 

" It seems to me," said Mrs. Lammle, " that you have had no 
money at all ever since we have been married." 



OUR MUTUAL FEIEND. 533 

"What seems to you," said Mr. Lammle, "to have been the 
case, may possibly have been the case. It doesn't matter." 

Was it the speciality of Mr. and Mrs. Lammle, or does it ever 
obtain with other loving couples ? In these matrimonial dialogues 
they never addressed each other, but always some invisible pres- 
ence that appeared to take a station about midway between them. 
Perliaps the skeleton in the cupboard comes out to be talked to, 
on such domestic occasions ? 

" I have never seen any money in the house," said Mrs. Lammle 
to the skeleton, " except my own annuity. Tliat I swear." 

"You needn't take the trouble of swearing," said Mr. Lammle 
to the skeleton ; " once more, it doesn't matter. You never turned 
your annuity to so good an account." 

" Good an account ! In what way 1 " asked Mrs..Xiammle. 

" In the way of getting credit, and living well," said Mr. Lammle. 

Perhaps the skeleton laughed scornfully on being intrusted with 
this question and this answer; certainly Mrs. Lammle did, and 
Mr. Lammle did. 

"And what is to happen next?" asked Mrs. Lammle of the 
skeleton. 

"Smash is to happen next," said Mr. Lammle to the same 
authority. 

After this, Mrs. Lammle looked disdainfully at the skeleton — 
but without carrying the look on to Mr. Lammle — and drooped 
her eyes. After that, Mr. Lammle did exactly the same thing, 
and drooped his eyes. A servant then entering with toast, the 
skeleton retired into the closet, and shut itself up. 

" Sophronia," said Mr. Lammle, when the servant had with- 
drawn. And then, very much louder : " Sophronia ! " 

"Well?" 

"Attend to me, if you please." He eyed her sternly until she 
did attend, and then went on. " I want to take counsel with you. 
Come, come; no more trifling. You know our league and cove- 
nant. We are to work together for our joint interest, and you are 
as knowing a hand as I am. We shouldn't be together if you were 
not. What's to be done ? We are hemmed into a corner. What 
shall we do ? " 

" Have you no scheme on foot that will bring in anything ? " 

Mr. Lammle plunged into his whiskers for reflection, and came 
out hopeless : " No ; as adventurers we are obliged to play rash 
games for chances of high winnings, and there has been a run of 
luck against us." 

She was resuming, "Have you nothing " when he stopped 

her. 



534 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"We, Sophronia. We, we, we." 

" Have we nothing to sell ? " 

" Deuce a bit. I have given a Jew a bill of sale on this furni- 
ture, and he could take it to-morrow, to-day, now. He would have 
taken it before now, I believe, but for Fledgeby." 

"What has Fledgeby to do with him?" 

" Knew him. Cautioned me against him before I got into his 
claws. Couldn't persuade him then, in behalf of somebody else." 

" Do you mean that Fledgeby has at all softened him towards 
you?" 

"Us, Sophronia. Us, us, us." 

"Towards us?" 

"I mean that the Jew has not yet done what he might have 
done, and that Fledgeby takes the credit of having got him to hold 
his hand." 

" Do you believe Fledgeby ? " 

" Sophronia, I never believe anybody. I never have, my dear, 
since I believed you. But it looks like it." 

Having given her this back-handed reminder of her mutinous 
observations to the skeleton, Mr. Lammle rose from the table — 
perhaps, the better to conceal a smile, and a white dint or two 
about his nose — and took a turn on the carpet and came to the 
hearthrug. 

" If we could have packed the brute off with Georgiana ; — but 
however ; that's spilled milk." 

As Lammle, standing gathering up the skirts of his dressing-gown 
with his back to the fire, said this, looking down at his wife, she 
turned pale and looked down at the ground. With a sense of 
disloyalty upon her, and perhaps with a sense of personal danger 
— for she was afraid of him — even afraid of his hand and afraid 
of his foot, though he had never done her violence — she hastened 
to put herself right in his eyes. 

" If we could borrow money, Alfred " 

" Beg money, borrow money, or steal money. It will be all one 
to us, Sophronia," her husband struck in. 

" — Then, we could weather this ? " 

" No doubt. To offer another original and undeniable remark, 
Sophronia, two and two make four." 

But, seeing that she was turning something in her mind, he 
gathered up the skirts of his dressing-gown again, and, tucking 
them under one arm, and collecting his ample whiskers in his other 
hand, kept his eye upon her silently. 

" It is natural, Alfred," she said, looking up with some timidity 
into his face, "to think in such an emergency of the richest people 
we know, and the simplest." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 535 

" Just so, Sophronia." 

"The Boffins." 

"Just so, Sophronia." 

" Is there nothing to be done with them ? " 

" What is there to be done with them, Sophronia ? " 

She cast about in her thoughts again, and he kept his eyes upon 
her as before. 

" Of course, I have repeatedly thought of the Boffins, Sophronia," 
he resumed, after a fruitless silence, " but I have seen my way to 
nothing. They are well guarded. That infernal Secretary stands 
between them and — people of merit." 

"If he could be got rid of?" said she, brightening a little, after 
more casting about. 

"Take time, Sophronia," observed her watchful husband, in a 
patronising manner. 

" If working him out of the way could be presented in the light 
of a service to Mr. Boffin 1 " 

"Take time, Sophronia." 

" We have remarked lately, Alfred, that the old man is turning 
very suspicious and distrustful." 

" Miserly too, my dear ; which is far the most unpromising for 
us. Nevertheless, take time, Sophronia, take time." 

She took time, and then said : 

"Suppose we should address ourselves to that tendency in 
him of which we have made ourselves quite sure. Suppose my 
conscience " 

" And we know what a conscience it is, my soul. Yes ? " 

" Suppose my conscience should not allow me to keep to myself 
any longer what that upstart girl told me of the Secretary's having 
made a declaration to her. Suppose my conscience should oblige 
me to repeat it to Mr. Boffin." 

" I rather like that," said Lammle. 

" Suppose I so repeated it to Mr. Boffin, as to insinuate that my 
sensitive delicacy and honour " 

" Very good words, Sophronia." 

" — As to insinuate that our sensitive delicacy and honour," she 
resumed, with a bitter stress upon the phrase, " would not allow 
us to be silent parties to so mercenary and designing a speculation 
on the Secretary's part, and so gross a breach of faith towards his 
confiding employer. Suppose I had imparted my virtuous uneasi- 
ness to my excellent husband, and he had said, in his integrity, 
' Sophronia, you must immediately disclose this to Mr. Boffin.' " 

"Once more, Sophronia," observed Lammle, changing the leg on 
which he stood, " I rather like that." 



536 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" You remarked that he is well guarded," she pursued. " I 
think so too. But if this should lead to his discharging his Secre- 
tary, there would be a weak place made." 

"Go on expounding, Sophronia. I begin to like this very- 
much." 

" Having, in our unimpeachable rectitude, done him the service 
of opening his eyes to the treachery of the person he trusted, we 
shall have established a claim upon him and a confidence with him. 
Whether it can be made much of, or little of, we must wait — be- 
cause we can't help it — to see. Probably we shall make the 
most of it that is to be made." 

" Probably," said Lammle. 

"Do you think it impossible," she asked, in the same cold plot- 
ting way, "that you might replace the Secretary?" 

" Not impossible, Sophronia. It might be brought about. At 
any rate it might be skilfully led up to." 

She nodded her understanding of the hint, as she looked at the 
fire. "Mr. Lammle," she said, musingly: not without a slight 
ironical touch; "Mr. Lammle would be so delighted to do any- 
thing in his power. Mr. Lammle, himself a man of business as 
well as a capitalist. Mr. Lammle, accustomed to be intrusted 
with the most delicate affairs. Mr. Lammle, who has managed 
my own little fortune so admirably, but who, to be sure, began to 
make his reputation with the advantage of being a man of prop- 
erty, above temptation, and beyond suspicion." 

Mr. Lammle smiled, and even patted her on the head. In his 
sinister relish of the scheme, as he stood above her, making it the 
subject of his cogitations, he seemed to have twice as much nose 
on his face as he had ever had in his life. 

He stood pondering, and she sat looking at the dusty fire with- 
out moving, for some time. But, the moment he began to speak 
again she looked up with a wince and attended to him, as if that 
double-dealing of hers had been in her mind, and the fear were re- 
vived in her of his hand or his foot. 

" It appears to me, Sophronia, that you have omitted one branch 
of the subject. Perhaps not, for women understand women. We 
might oust the girl herself?" 

Mrs. Lammle shook her head. " She has an immensely strong 
hold upon them both, Alfred. Not to be compared with that of a 
paid secretary." 

"But the dear child," said Lammle, with a crooked smile, 
" ought to have been open with her benefactor and benefactress. 
The darling love ought to have reposed unbounded confidence in 
her benefactor and benefactress." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 537 

Sophronia shook her head again. 

"Well ! Women understand women," said her husband, rather 
disappointed. " I don't press it. It might be the making of our 
fortune to make a clean sweep of them both. With me to manage 
the property, and my wife to manage the people — Whew ! " 

Again shaking her head, she returned : " They will never quarrel 
with the girl. They will never punish the girl. We must accept 
the girl, rely upon it." 

"Well!" cried Lammle, shrugging his shoulders, "so be it: 
only always remember that we don't want her." 

"Now, the sole remaining question is," said Mrs. Lammle, 
" when shall I begin ? " 

" You cannot begin too soon, Sophronia. As I have told you, 
the condition of our affairs is desperate, and may be blown upon 
at any moment." 

" I must secure Mr. Boflfin alone, Alfred. If his wife was pres- 
ent, she would throw oil upon the waters. I know I should fail 
to move him to an angry outburst, if his wife was there. And as 
to the girl herself — as I am going to betray her confidence, she is 
equally out of the question." 

" It wouldn't do to write for an appointment 1 " said Lammle. 

" No, certainly not. They would wonder among themselves why 
I wrote, and I want to have him wholly unprepared." 

" Call, and ask to see him alone ? " suggested Lammle. 

" I would rather not do that either. Leave it to me. Spare 
me the little carriage for to-day, and for to-morrow (if I don't suc- 
ceed to-day), and I'll lie in wait for him." 

It was barely settled when a manly form was seen to pass the 
windows and heard to knock and ring. "Here's Fledgeby," said 
Lammle. " He admires you, and has a high opinion of you. I'll 
be out. Coax him to use his influence with the Jew. His name 
is Riah, of the house of Pubsey and Co." Adding these words 
under his breath, lest he should be audible in the erect ears of 
Mr. Fledgeby, through two keyholes and the hall, Lammle, making 
signals of discretion to his servant, went softly up-stairs. 

"Mr. Fledgeby," said Mrs, Lammle, giving him a very gracious 
reception, "so glad to see you! My poor dear Alfred, who is 
greatly worried just now about his affairs, went out rather early. 
Dear Mr. Fledgeby, do sit down." 

Dear Mr. Fledgeby did sit down, and satisfied himself (or, judg- 
ing from the expression of his countenance, (i^'.ssatisfied himself) 
that nothing new had occurred in the way of whisker-sprout since 
he came round the corner from the Albany. 

" Dear Mr. Fledgeby, it was needless to mention to you that my 



538 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

poor dear Alfred is much worried about his affairs at present, for 
he has told me what a comfort you are to him in his temporary 
difficulties, and what a great service you have rendered him." 

" Oh ! " said Mr. Fledgeby. 

"Yes," said Mrs. Lammle. 

"I didn't know," remarked Mr. Fledgeby, trying a new part of 
his chair, "but that Lammle might be reserved about his affairs." 

"Not to me," said Mrs. Lammle, with deep feeling. 

" Oh, indeed ? " said Fledgeby. 

"Not to me, dear Mr. Fledgeby. I am his wife." 

"Yes. I — I always understood so," said Mr. Fledgeby. 

" And as the wife of Alfred, may I, dear Mr. Fledgeby, wholly 
without his authority or knowledge, as I am sure your discernment 
will perceive, entreat you to continue that great service, and once 
more use your well-earned influence with Mr. Riah for a little more 
indulgence? The name I have heard Alfred mention, tossing in 
bis dreams, is Riah ; is it not 1 " 

" The name of the Creditor is Riah," said Mr. Fledgeby, with 
a rather uncompromising accent on his noun-substantive. " Saint 
Mary Axe. Pubsey and Co." 

" Oh, yes ! " exclaimed Mrs. Lammle, clasping her hands with a 
certain gushing wildness. " Pubsey and Co. ! " 

"The pleading of the feminine " Mr. Fledgeby began, and 

there stuck so long for a word to get on with, that Mrs. Lammle 
offered him sweetly, "Heart?" 

"No," said Mr. Fledgeby, "Gender — is ever what a man is 
bound to listen to, and I wish it rested with myself. But this 
Riah is a nasty one, Mrs. Lammle ; he really is." 

" Not if you speak to him, dear Mr. Fledgeby."" 

" Upon my soul and body he is ! " said Fledgeby. 

" Try. Try once more, dearest Mr. Fledgeby. What is there 
you cannot do, if you will ? " 

"Thank you," said Fledgeby, "you're very complimentary to 
say so. I don't mind trying him again, at your request. But of 
course I can't answer for the consequences. Riah is a tough subject, 
and when he says he'll do a thing, he'll do it." 

"Exactly so," cried Mrs. Lammle, "and when he says to you 
he'll wait, he'll wait." 

(" She is a devilish clever woman," thought Fledgeby. " I didn't 
see that opening, but she spies it out and cuts into it as soon as it's 
made.") 

"In point of fact, dear Mr. Fledgeby," Mrs. Lammle went on in 
a very interesting manner, "not to affect concealment of Alfred's 
hopes, to you who are so much his friend, there is a distant break 
in his horizon." 




MR, FLEDGEBY DEPARTS ON HIS ERRAND OP MERCY. 



540 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

This figure of speech seemed rather mysterious to Fascination 
Fledgeby, who said, " There's a what in his — ehV 

" Alfred, dear Mr. Fledgeby, discussed with me this very morning 
before he went out, some prospects he has, which might entirely 
change the aspect of his present troubles." 

"Really?" said Fledgeby. 

" yes ! " Here Mrs. Lammle brought her handkerchief into 
play. "And you know, dear Mr. Fledgeby — you who study the 
human heart, and study the world — what an affliction it would be 
to lose position and to lose credit, when ability to tide over a very 
short time might save all appearances." 

" Oh ! " said Fledgeby. " Then you think, Mrs. Lammle, that 
if Lammle got time, he wouldn't burst up ? — To use an expres- 
sion," Mr. Fledgeby apologetically explained, "which is adopted in 
the Money Market." 

" Indeed yes. Truly, truly, yes ! " 

"That makes all the difference," said Fledgeby. "I'll make a 
point of seeing Riah at once." 

" Blessings on you, dearest Mr. Fledgeby ! " 

."Not at all," said Fledgeby. She gave him her hand. "The 
hand," said Mr. Fledgeby, "of a lovely and superior-minded female 
is ever the repayment of a " 

" Noble action ! " said Mrs. Lammle, extremely anxious to get 
rid of him. 

"It wasn't what I was going to say," returned Fledgeby, who 
never would, under any circumstances, accept a suggested expres- 
sion, "but you're very compHmentary. May I imprint a — a one 
— upon it 1 Good morning ! " 

" I may depend upon your promptitude, dearest Mr. Fledgeby?" 

Said Fledgeby, looking back at the door and respectfully kissing 
his hand, "You may depend upon it." 

In fact, Mr. Fledgeby sped on his errand of mercy through the 
streets, at so brisk a rate that his feet might have been winged by 
all the good spirits that wait on -Generosity. They might have 
taken up their station in his breast, too, for he was blithe and 
merry. There was quite a fresh trill in his voice, when, arriving 
at the counting-house in Saint Mary Axe, and finding it for the mo- 
ment empty, he trolled forth at the foot of the staircase : " Now, 
Judah, what are you up to there ? " 

The old man appeared, with his accustomed deference. 

"Halloa!" said Fledgeby, falling back, with a wink. "You 
mean mischief, Jerusalem ! " 

The old man raised his eyes inquiringly. 

" Yes you do," said Fledgeby. " Oh, you sinner ! Oh, you 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 541 

dodger ! What ! You're going to act upon that bill of sale at 
Lammle's, are you ? Nothing will turn you, won't it ? You won't 
be put off for another single minute, won't you 1 " 

Ordered to immediate action by the master's tone and look, 
the old man took up his hat from the little counter where it 
lay. 

" You have been told that he might pull through it, if you didn't 
go in to win, Wide- Awake ; have you 1 " said Fledgeby. " And it's 
not your game that he should pull through it; ain't if? You 
having got security, and there being enough to pay you 1 Oh, you 
Jew ! " 

The old man stood irresolute and uncertain for a moment, as if 
there might be further instructions for him in reserve. 

" Do I go, sir ? " he at length asked in a low voice. 

"Asks me if he is going ! " exclaimed Fledgeby. "Asks vae, as 
if he didn't know his own purpose ! Asks me, as if he hadn't got 
his hat on ready ! Asks me, as if his sharp old eye — why, it 
cuts like a knife — wasn't looking at his walking-stick by the 
door ! " 

" Do I go, sir ? " 

" Do you go ? " sneered Fledgeby. " Yes, you do go. Toddle, 
Judah ! " 



CHAPTER XIII. 

GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM. 

Fascination Fledgeby, left alone in the counting-house, strolled 
about with his hat on one side, whistling, ^nd investigating the 
drawers, and prying here and there for any small evidences of his 
being cheated, but could find none. " Not his merit that he don't 
cheat me," was Mr. Fledgeby 's commentary delivered with a wink, 
"but my precaution." He then with a lazy grandeur asserted his 
rights as Lord of Pubsey and Co. by poking his cane at the stools 
and boxes, and spitting in the fireplace, and so loitered royally to 
the window and looked out into the narrow street, with his small 
eyes just peering over the top of Pubsey and Co.'s blind. As a 
blind in more senses than one, it reminded him that he was alone 
in the counting-house, with the front door open. He was moving 
away to shut it, lest he should be injudiciously identified with the 
establishment, when he was stopped by some one coming to the 
door. 

This some one was the dolls' dressmaker, with a little basket on 
her arm, and her crutch stick in her hand. Her keen eyes had 



542 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

espied Mr. Fledgeby before Mr. Fledgeby had espied her, and he 
was paralysed in his purpose of shutting her out, not so much by 
her approaching the door, as by her favouring him with a shower 
of nods, the instant he saw her. This advantage she improved by 
hobbling up the steps with such despatch that before Mr. Fledgeby 
could take measures for her finding nobody at home, she was face 
to face with him in the counting-house. 

"Hope I see you well, sir," said Miss Wren. " Mr. Eiah in?" 

Fledgeby had dropped into a chair, in the attitude of one waiting 
wearily. "I suppose he will be back soon," he replied ; "he has 
cut out and left me expecting him back, in an odd way. Haven't 
I seen you before ? " 

"Once before — if you had your eyesight," replied Miss Wren; 
the conditional clause in an under-tone. 

" When you were carrying on some games up at the top of the 
house. I remember. How's your friend ? " 

"I have more friends than one, sir, I hope," replied Miss Wren. 
" Which friend ? " 

" Never mind," said Mr. Fledgeby, shutting up one eye, "any of 
your friends, all your friends. Are they pretty tolerable 1 " 

Somewhat confounded. Miss Wren parried the pleasantry, and 
sat down in a corner behind the door, with her basket in her lap. 
By-and-bye she said, breaking a long and patient silence : 

" I beg your pardon, sir, but I am used to find Mr. Riah at this 
time, and so I generally come at this time. I only want to buy 
my poor little two shillings' worth of waste. Perhaps you'll kindly 
let me have it, and I'll trot off to my work." 

"/let you have it?" said Fledgeby, turning his head towards 
her ; for he had been sitting blinking at the light, and feeling his 
cheek. " Why, you don't really suppose that I have anything to 
do with the place, or the business ; do you ? " 

" Suppose ? " exclaimed Miss Wren. " He said, that day, you 
were the master ! " 

"The old cock in black said? Riah said? Why, he'd say 
anything." 

" Well ; but you said so too," returned Miss Wren. "Or at 
least you took on like the master, and didn't contradict him." 

" One of his dodges," said Mr. Fledgeby, with a cool and con- 
temptuous shrug. " He's made of dodges. He said to me, ' Come 
up to the top of the house, sir, and I'll show you a handsome girl. 
But I shall call you the master.' So I went up to the top of the 
house and he showed me the handsome girl (very well worth look- 
ing at she was), and I was called the master. I don't know why. 
I dare say he don't. He loves a dodge for its own sake; being," 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 643 

added Mr. Fledgeby, after casting about for an expressive phrase, 
"the dodgerest of all the dodgers." 

" Oh my head ! " cried the dolls' dressmaker, holding it with 
both her hands, as if it were cracking. "You can't mean what 
you say." 

" I can, my little woman," retorted Fledgeby, "and I do, I assure 
you." 

This repudiation was not only an act of deliberate policy on 
Fledgeby's part, in case of his being surprised by any other caller, 
but was also a retort upon Miss Wren for her over-sharpness, and 
a pleasant instance of his humour as regarded the old Jew. " He 
has got a bad name as an old Jew, and he is paid for the use of it, 
and I'll have my money's worth out of him." This was Fledgeby's 
habitual reflection in the way of business, and it was sharpened just 
now by the old man's presuming to have a secret from him : though 
of the secret itself, as annoying somebody else whom he disliked, 
he by no means disapproved. 

Miss Wren with a fallen countenance sat behind the door looking 
thoughtfully at the ground, and the long and patient silence had 
again set in for some time, when the expression of Mr. Fledgeby's 
face betokened that through the upper portion of the door, which 
was of glass, he saw some one faltering on the brink of the counting- 
house. Presently there was a rustle and a tap, and then some more 
rustling and another tap. Fledgeby taking no notice, the door 
was at length softly opened, and the dried face of a mild little 
elderly gentleman looked in. 

" Mr. Riah ? " said this visitor, very politely. 

" I am waiting for him, sir," returned Mr. Fledgeby. " He went 
out and left me here. I expect him back every minute. Perhaps 
you had better take a chair." 

The gentleman took a chair, and put his hand to his forehead, as 
if he were in a melancholy frame of mind. Mr. Fledgeby eyed him 
aside, and seemed to relish his attitude. 

"A fine day, sir," remarked Fledgeby. 

The little dried gentleman was so occupied with his own de- 
pressed reflections that he did not notice the remark until the sound 
of Mr. Fledgeby's voice had died out of the counting-house. Then 
he started and said : "I beg your pardon, sir. I fear you spoke 
to me ? " 

"I said," remarked Fledgeby, a little louder than before, "it 
was a fine day." 

" I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. Yes." 

Again the little dried gentleman put his hand to his forehead, 
and again Mr. Fledgeby seemed to enjoy his doing it. When the 



544 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

gentleman changed his attitude with a sigh, Fledgeby spake with 
a grin. 

" Mr. Twemlow, I think ? " 

The dried gentleman seemed much surprised. 

" Had the pleasure of dining with you at Lammle's," said 
Fledgeby. " Even have the honour of being a connection of yours. 
An unexpected sort of place this to meet in ; but one never knows, 
when one gets into the City, what people one may knock up against. 
I hope you have your health, and are enjoying yourself." 

There might have been a touch of impertinence in the last words : 
on the other hand, it might have been but the native grace of Mr. 
Fledgeby's manner. Mr. Fledgeby sat on a stool with a foot on 
the rail of another stool, and his hat on. Mr. Twemlow had 
uncovered on locking in at the door, and remained so. 

Now the conscientious Twemlow, knowing what he had done to 
thwart the gracious Fledgeby, was particularly disconcerted by this 
encounter. He was as ill at ease as a gentleman well could be. 
He felt himself bound to conduct himself stiffly towards Fledgeby, 
and he made him a distant bow. Fledgeby made his small eyes 
smaller in taking special note of his manner. The dolls' dressmaker 
sat in her corner behind the door, with her eyes on the ground and 
her hands folded on her basket, holding her crutch stick between 
them, and appearing to take no heed of anything. 

" He's a long time," muttered Mr. Fledgeby, looking at his watch. 
" What time may you make it, Mr. Twemlow ? " 

Mr. Twemlow made it ten minutes past twelve, sir. 

"As near as a toucher," assented Fledgeby. "I hope, Mr. 
Twemlow, your business here may be of a more agreeable character 
than mine." 

" Thank you, sir," said Mr. Twemlow. 

Fledgeby again made his small eyes smaller, as he glanced with 
great complacency at Twemlow, who was timorously tapping the 
table with a folded letter. 

"AVhat I know of Mr. Riah," said Fledgeby, with a very dis- 
paraging utterance of his name, " leads me to believe that this is 
about the shop for disagreeable business. I have always found 
him the bitingest and tightest screw in London." 

Mr. Twemlow acknowledged the remark with a little distant 
bow. It evidently made him nervous. 

" So much so," pursued Fledgeby, " that if it wasn't to be true 
to a friend, nobody should catch me waiting here a single minute. 
But if you have friends in adversity, stand by them. That's what 
I say and act up to." 

The equitable Twemlow felt that this sentiment, irrespective of 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 545 

the utterer, demanded his cordial assent. "You are very right, 
sir," he rejoined with spirit. "You indicate the generous and 
manly course." 

" Glad to have your approbation," returned Fledgeby. " It's a 
coincidence, Mr. Twemlow;" here he descended from his perch, 
and sauntered towards him; "that the friends I am standing by 
to-day are the friends at whose house I met you ! The Lammles. 
She's a very taking and agreeable woman 1 " 

Conscience smote the gentle Twemlow pale. "Yes," he said. 
"She is." 

"And when she appealed to me this morning, to come and try 
what I could do to pacify their creditor, this Mr. Riah — that I 
certainly have gained some little influence with in transacting 
business for another friend, but nothing like so much as she 
supposes — and when a woman like that spoke to me as her 
dearest Mr. Fledgeby, and shed tears — why what could I do, you 
know?" 

Twemlow gasped " Nothing but come." 

" Nothing but come. And so I came. But why," said Fledgeby, 
putting his hands in his pockets and counterfeiting deep medita- 
tion, "why Ptiah should have started up, when I told him that 
the Lammles entreated him to hold over a Bill of Sale he has on 
all their effects ; and why he should have cut out, saying he would 
be back directly; and why he should have left me here alone 
so long; I cannot understand." 

The chivalrous Twemlow, Knight of the Simple Heart, was 
not in a condition to offer any suggestion. He was too penitent, 
too remorseful. For the first time in his life he had done an 
under-handed action, and he had done wrong. He had secretly 
interposed against this confiding young man, for no better real 
reason than because the young man's ways were not his ways. 

But, the confiding young man proceeded to heap coals of fire on 
his sensitive head. 

" I beg your pardon, Mr. Twemlow ; you see I am acquainted 
with the nature of the affairs that are transacted here. Is there 
anything I can do for you here ? You have always been brought 
up as a gentleman, and never as a man of business ; " another 
touch of possible impertinence in this place; "and perhaps you 
are but a poor man of business. What else is to be expected 1 " 

" I am even a poorer man of business than I am a man, sir," 
returned Twemlow, " and I could hardly express my deficiency in 
a stronger way. I really do not so much as clearly understand 
my position in the matter on which I am brought here. But 
there are reasons which make me very delicate of accepting your 

2n 



546 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

assistance. I am greatly, greatly, disinclined to profit by it. I 
dou't deserve it." 

Good childish creature ! Condemned to a passage through the 
world by such narrow little dimly-lighted ways, and picking up 
so few specks or spots on the road ! 

"Perhaps," said Fledgeby, "you may be a little proud of enter- 
ing on the topic — having been brought up as a gentleman." 

"It's not that, sir," returned Twemlow, "it's not that. I hope 
I distinguish between true pride and false pride." 

"I have no pride at all, myself," said Fledgeby, "and perhaps I 
don't cut things so fine as to know one from t'other. But I know 
this is a place where even a man of business needs his wits about 
him ; and if mine can be of any use to you here, you're welcome 
to them." 

"You are very good," said Twemlow, faltering. "But I am 
most unwilling " 

"I don't, you know," proceeded Fledgeby, with an ill-favoured 
glance, "entertain the vanity of supposing that my wits could 
be of any use to you in society, but they might be here. You 
cultivate society and society cultivates you, but Mr. Riah's not 
society. In society, Mr. Riah is kept dark ; eh, Mr. Twemlow ? " 

Twemlow, much disturbed, and with his hand fluttering about 
his forehead, replied : "Quite true." 

The confiding young man besought him to state his case. 
The innocent Twemlow expecting Fledgeby to be astounded by 
what he should unfold, and not for an instant conceiving the 
possibility of its happening every day, but treating of it as a 
terrible phenomenon occurring in the course of ages, related how 
that he had had a deceased friend, a married civil officer with a 
family, who had wanted money for change of place on change 
of post, and how he, Twemlow, had "given him his name," with 
the usual, but in the eyes of Twemlow almost incredible, result 
that he had been left to repay what he had never had. How, in the 
course of years, he had reduced the principal by trifling sums, 
"having," said Twemlow, "always to observe great economy, being 
in the enjoyment of a fixed income limited in extent, and that 
depending on the munificence of a certain nobleman," and had 
always pinched the full interest out of himself with punctual 
pinches. How he had come, in course of time, to look upon 
this one only debt of his life as a regular quarterly drawback, and 
no worse, when "his name" had some way fallen into the 
possession of Mr. Riah, who had sent him notice to redeem it by 
paying up in full, in one plump sum, or take tremendous conse- 
quences. This, with hazy remembrances of how he had been 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 547 

carried to some office to " confess judgment " (as he recollected 
the phrase), and how he had been carried to another office where 
his life was assured for somebody not wholly unconnected with 
the sherry trade whom he remembered by the remarkable circum- 
stance that he had a Straduarius violin to dispose of, and also 
a Madonna, formed the sum and substance of Mr. Twemlow's 
narrative. Through which stalked the shadow of the awful 
Snigsworth, eyed afar off by money-lenders as Security in the Mist, 
and menacing Twemlow with his baronial truncheon. 

To all, Mr. Fledgeby listened with the modest gravity becoming 
a confiding young man who knew it all beforehand, and, when it 
was finished, seriously shook his head. " I don't like, Mr. Twem- 
low," said Fledgeby, " I don't like Riah's calling in the principal. 
If he's determinecl to call it in, it must come." 

"But supposing, sir," said Twemlow, downcast, "that it can't 
come?" 

" Then," retorted Fledgeby, "you must go, you know." 

" Where ? " asked Twemlow, faintly. 

" To prison," returned Fledgeby. Whereat Mr. Twemlow leaned 
his innocent head upon his hand, and moaned a little moan of 
distress and disgrace. 

"However," said Fledgeby, appearing to pluck up his spirits, 
" we'.U hope it's not so bad as that comes to. If you'll allow me, 
I'll mention to Mr. Riah, when he comes in, who you are, and I'll 
tell him you're my friend, and I'll say my say for you, instead of 
your saying it for yourself ; I may be able to do it in a more busi- 
ness-like way. You won't consider it a liberty ? " 

"I thank you again and again, sir," said Twemlow. "I am 
strong, strongly disinclined to avail myself of your generosity, 
though my helplessness yields. For I cannot but feel that I — 
to put it in the mildest form of speech — that I have done nothing 
to deserve it." 

" Where can he be ? " muttered Fledgeby, referring to his watch 
again. " What can he have gone out for ? Did you ever see him, 
Mr. Twemlow?" 

" Never." 

" He is a thorough Jew to look at, but he is a more thorough 
Jew to deal with. He's worse when he's quiet. If he's quiet, I 
shall take it as a very bad sign. Keep your eye upon him when 
he comes in, and, if he's quiet, don't be hopeful. Here he is ! — 
He looks quiet." 

With these words, which had the effect of causing the harmless 
Twemlow painful agitation, Mr. Fledgeby withdrew to his former 
post, and the old man entered the counting-house. 



548 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Why, Mr. Riah," said Fledgeby, " I thought you were lost ! " 

The old man, glancing at the stranger, stood stock-still. He 
perceived that his master was leading up to the orders he was to 
take, and he waited to understand them. 

"I really thought," repeated Fledgeby, slowly, "that you were 
lost, Mr. Riah. Why, now I look at you — but no, you can't have 
done it ; no, you can't have done it ! " 

Hat in hand, the old man lifted his head, and looked distressfully 
at Fledgeby as seeking to know what new moral burden he was to 
bear. 

" You can't have rushed out to get the start of everybody else, 
and put in that bill of sale at Lammle's ? " said Fledgeby. " Say 
you haven't, Mr. Riah." 

"Sir, I have," replied the old man in a low voice. 

" Oh my eye ! " cried Fledgeby. " Tut, tut, tut ! Dear, dear, 
dear ! Well ! I knew you were a hard customer, Mr. Riah, but 
I never thought you were as hard as that." 

"Sir," said the old man, with great uneasiness, "I do as I am 
directed. I am not the principal here. I am but the agent of a 
superior, and I have no choice, no power." 

"Don't say so," returned Fledgeby, secretly exultant as the old 
man stretched out his hands, with a shrinking action of defending 
himself against the sharp construction of the two observers. 
" Don't play the tune of the trade, Mr. Riah. You've a right to 
get in your debts, if you're determined to do it, but don't pretend 
what every one in your line regularly pretends. At least, don't do 
it to me. Why should you, Mr. Riah ? You know I know all 
about you." 

The old man clasped the skirt of his long coat with his disengaged 
hand, and directed a wistful look at Fledgeby. 

"And don't," said Fledgeby, "don't, I entreat you as a favour, 
Mr. Riah, be so devilish meek, for I know what'll follow if you are. 
Look here, Mr. Riah. This gentleman is Mr. Twemlow." 

The Jew turned to him and bowed. That poor lamb bowed in 
return; polite, and terrified. 

"I have made such a failure," proceeded Fledgeby, "in trying 
to do anything with you for my friend Lammle, that I've hardly 
a hope of doing anything with you for my friend (and connection 
indeed) Mr. Twemlow. But I do think that if you would do a 
favour for anybody, you would for me, and I won't fail for want 
of trying, and I've passed my promise to Mr. Twemlow besides. 
Now, Mr. Riah, here is Mr. Twemlow. Always good for his 
interest, always coming up to time, always paying his little way. 
Now, why should you press Mr. Twcndow ? You can't have any 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 649 

spite against Mr. Twemlow ! Why not be easy with Mr. Twem- 
low?" 

The old man looked into Fledgeby's little eyes for any sign of 
leave to be easy with Mr. Twemlow; but there was no sign in 
them. 

"Mr. Twemlow is no connection of yours, Mr. Riah," said 
Fledgeby ; "you can't want to be even with him for having 
through life gone in for a gentleman and hung on to his Family. 
If Mr. Twemlow has a contempt for business, what can it matter 
to you 1 " 

"But pardon me," interposed the gentle victim, "I have not. 
I should consider it presumption." 

"There, Mr. Riah!" said Fledgeby; "isn't that handsomely 
said 1 Come ! Make terms with me for Mr. Twemlow." 

The old man looked again for any sign of permission to spare 
the poor little gentleman. No. Mr. Fledgeby meant him to be 
racked. 

" I am very sorry, Mr. Twemlow," said Riah, " I have my in- 
structions. I am invested with no authority for diverging from 
them. The money must be paid." 

"In full and slap down, do you mean, Mr. Riah?" asked 
Fledgeby, to make things quite explicit. 

"In full, sir, and at once," was Riah's answer. 

Mr. Fledgeby shook his head deploringly at Twemlow, and 
mutely expressed in reference to the venerable figure standing 
before him with eyes upon the ground : " What a Monster of an 
Israelite this is ! " 

"Mr. Riah," said Fledgeby. 

The old man lifted up his eyes once more to the little eyes in 
Mr. Fledgeby's head, with some reviving hope that the sign might 
be coming yet. 

" Mr. Riah, it's of no use my holding back the fact. There's a 
certain great party in the background in Mr. Twemlow's case, and 
you know it." 

"I know it," the old man admitted. 

" Now, I'll put it as a plain point of business, Mr. Riah. Are 
you fully determined (as a plain point of business) either to have 
that said great party's security, or that said great party's money ? " 

" Fully determined," answered Riah, as he read his master's face, 
and learnt the book. 

"Not at all caring for, and indeed as it seems to me rather 
enjoying," said Fledgeby, with peculiar unction, "the precious 
kick-up and row that will come off between Mr. Twemlow and 
the said great party ? " 



550 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

This required no answer, and received none. Poor Mr. Twem- 
low, who had betrayed the keenest mental terrors since his noble 
kinsman loomed in the perspective, rose with a sigh to take his 
departure. " I thank you very much, sir," he said, offering Fledgeby 
his feverish hand. "You have done me an unmerited service. 
Thank you, thank you ! " 

"Don't mention it," answered Fledgeby. "It's a failure so far, 
but I'll stay behind, and take another touch at Mr. Riah." 

"Do not deceive yourself, Mr. Twemlow," said the Jew, then 
addressing him directly for the first time. " There is no hope for 
you. You must expect no leniency here. You must pay in full, 
and you cannot pay too promptly, or you will be put to heavy 
charges. Trust nothing to me, sir. Money, money, money." 
When he had said these words in an emphatic manner, he 
acknowledged Mr. Twemlow's still polite motion of his head, and 
that amiable little worthy took his departure in the lowest spirits. 

Fascination Fledgeby was in such a merry vein when the count- 
ing-house was cleared of him, that he had nothing for it but to go 
to the window, and lean his arms on the frame of the blind, and 
have his silent laugh out, with his back to his subordinate. When 
he turned round again with a composed countenance, his subordi- 
nate still stood in the same place, and the dolls' dressmaker sat 
behind the door with a look of horror. 

"Halloa!" cried Mr. Fledgeby, "you're forgetting this young 
lady, Mr. Riah, and she has been waiting long enough too. Sell 
her her waste, please, and give her good measure if you can make 
up your mind to do the liberal thing for once." 

He looked on for a time, as the Jew filled her little basket with 
such scraps as she was used to buy ; but, his merry vein coming 
on again, he was obliged to turn round to the window once more, 
and lean his arms on the blind. 

" There, my Cinderella dear," said the old man in a whisper, 
and with a worn-out look, "the basket's full now. Bless you! 
And get you gone ! " 

"Don't call me your Cinderella dear," returned Miss Wren. 
" Oh, you cruel godmother ! " 

She shook that emphatic little forefinger of hers in his face at 
parting, as earnestly and reproachfully as she had ever shaken it 
at her grim old child at home. 

" You are not the godmother at all ! " said she. " You are the 
Wolf in the Forest, the wicked Wolf ! And if ever my dear Lizzie 
is sold and betrayed, I shall know who sold and betrayed her ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 551 

CHAPTER XIV. 

MR. WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR. BOFFIN'S NOSE. 

Having assisted at a few more expositions of the lives of Mi- 
sers, Mr. Venus became almost indispensable to the evenings at the 
Bower. The circumstance of having another listener to the won- 
ders unfolded by Wegg, or, as it were, another calculator to cast 
up the guineas found in teapots, chimneys, racks and mangers, 
and other such banks of deposit, seemed greatly to heighten Mr. 
Boffin's enjoyment; while Silas Wegg, for his part, though of a 
jealous temperament which might under ordinary circumstances 
have resented the anatomist's getting into favour, was so very 
anxious to keep his eye on that gentleman — lest, being too much 
left to himself, he should be tempted to play any tricks with the 
precious document in his keeping — that he never lost an oppor- 
tunity of commending him to Mr. Boffin's notice as a third party 
whose company was much to be desired. Another friendly demon- 
stration towards him Mr. Wegg now regularly gratified. After 
each sitting was over, and the patron had departed, Mr. Wegg 
invariably saw Mr. Venus home. To be sure, he as invariably 
requested to be refreshed with a sight of the paper in which he 
was a joint proprietor ; but he never failed to remark that it was 
the great pleasure he derived from Mr. Venus's improving society 
which had insensibly lured him round to Clerkenwell again, and 
that, finding himself once more attracted to the spot by the social 
powers of Mr. V., he would beg leave to go through that little 
incidental procedure, as a matter of form. "For well I know, 
sir," Mr. Wegg would add, "that a man of your delicate mind 
would wish to be checked off whenever the opportunity arises, and 
it is not for me to baulk your feelings." 

A certain rustiness in Mr. Venus, which never became so lubri- 
cated by the oil of Mr. Wegg but that he turned under the screw 
in a creaking and stiff manner, was very noticeable at about this 
period. While assisting at the literary evenings, he even went so 
far, on two or three occasions, as to correct Mr. Wegg when he 
grossly mispronounced a word, or made nonsense of a passage ; 
insomuch that Mr. Wegg took to surveying his course in the day, 
and to making arrangements for getting round rocks at night 
instead of running straight upon them. Of the slightest anatomi- 
cal reference he became particularly shy, and, if he saw a bone 
ahead, would go any distance out of his way rather than mention 
it by name. 

The adverse destinies ordained that one evening Mr. Wegg's 



552 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

labouring bark became beset by polysyllables, and embarrassed 
among a perfect archipelago of hard words. It being necessary to 
take soundings every minute, and to feel the way with the great- 
est caution, Mr. Wegg's attention was fully employed. Advantage 
was taken of this dilemma by Mr. Venus, to pass a scrap of paper 
into Mr. Boffin's hand, and lay his finger on his own lip. 

When Mr. Boffin got home at night he found that the paper 
contained Mr. Venus's card and these words : " Should be glad to 
be honoured with a call respecting business of your own, about 
dusk on an early evening." 

The very next evening saw Mr. Boffin peeping in at the pre- 
served frogs in Mr. Venus's shop-window, and saw Mr. Venus 
espying Mr. Boffin with the readiness of one on the alert, and 
beckoning that gentleman into his interior. Responding, Mr. 
Boffin was invited to seat himself on the box of human miscel- 
lanies before the fire, and did so, looking round the place with 
admiring eyes. The fire being low and fitful, and the dusk gloomy, 
the whole stock seemed to be winking and blinking with both 
eyes, as Mr. Venus did. The French gentleman, though he had 
no eyes, was not at all behind-hand, but appeared, as the flame 
rose and fell, to open and shut his no eyes, with the regularity of 
the glass-eyed dogs and ducks and birds. The big-headed babies 
were equally obliging in lending their grotesque aid to the general 
efifect. 

"You see, Mr. Venus, I've lost no time," said Mr. Boffin. 
"Here I am." 

" Here you are, sir," assented Mr. Venus. 

"I don't like secrecy," pursued Mr. Boffin — "at least, not in a 
general way I don't — but I dare say you'll show me good reason 
for being secret so far." 

"I think I shall, sir," returned Venus. 

"Good," said Mr. Boffin. "You don't expect Wegg, I take it 
for granted 1 " 

" No, sir. I expect no one but the present company." 

Mr. Boffin glanced about him, as accepting under that inclusive 
denomination the French gentleman and the circle in which he 
didn't move, and repeated, " The present company." 

" Sir," said Mr. Venus, " before entering upon business, I shall 
have to ask you for your word and honour that we are in 
confidence." 

"Let's wait a bit and understand what the expression means," 
answered Mr. Boff.n. "In confidence for how long? In confi- 
dence for ever and a day ? " 

"I take the hint, sir," said Venus; "you think you might 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 653 

consider the business, when you came to know it, to be of a nature 
incompatible with confidence on your part ? " 

"I might," said Mr. Boffin, with a cautious look. 

"True, sir. Well, sir," observed Venus, after clutching at his 
dusty hair, to brighten his ideas, " let us put it another way. I 
open the business with you, relying upon your honour not to do 
anything in it, and not to mention me in it, without my knowledge." 

" That sounds fair," said Mr. Boffin. " I agree to that." 

" I have your word and honour, sir?" 

"My good fellow," retorted Mr. Boffin, "you have my word; 
and how you can have that, without my honour too, I don't know. 
I've sorted a lot of dust in my time, but I never knew the two 
things go into separate heaps." 

This remark seemed rather to abash Mr. Venus. He hesitated, 
and said, "Very true, sir;" and again, "Very true, sir," before re- 
suming the thread of his discourse. 

" Mr. Boffin, if I confess to you that I fell into a proposal of 
which you were the subject, and of which you oughtn't to have 
been the subject, you will allow me to mention, and will please take 
into favourable consideration, that I was in a crushed state of 
mind at the time." 

The Golden Dustman, v;ith his hands folded on the top of his 
stout stick, with his chin resting upon them, and with something 
leering and whimsical in his eyes, gave a nod and said, " Quite so, 
Venus." 

" That proposal, sir, was a conspiring breach of your confidence, 
to such an extent, that I ought at once to have made it known to 
you. But I didn't, Mr. Boffin, and I fell into it." 

Without moving eye or finger, Mr. Boffin gave another nod, 
and placidly repeated, "Quite so, Venus." 

"Not that I was ever hearty in it, sir," the penitent anatomist 
went on, " or that I ever viewed myself with anything but reproach 
for having turned out of the paths of science into the paths of 

" he was going to say "villany," but, unwilling to press too 

hard upon himself, substituted with great emphasis — "Weggery. " 

Placid and whimsical of look as ever, Mr. Boffin answered : 
" Quite so, Venus." 

"And now, sir," said Venus, "having prepared your mind in 
the rough, I will articulate the details." With which brief profes- 
sional exordium, he entered on the history of the friendly move, 
and truly recounted it. One might have thought that it would 
have extracted some show of surprise or anger, or other emotion, 
from Mr. Boffin, but it extracted iipthing beyond his former com- 
ment : " Quite so, Venus." 



554 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" I have astonished you, sir, I believe ? " said Mr. Venus, paus- 
ing dubiously. 

Mr. Botfin simply answered as aforesaid : " Quite so, Venus." 

By this time the astonishment was all on the other side. It did 
not, however, so continue. For, when Venus passed to Wegg's dis- 
covery, and from that to their having both seen Mr. Boffin dig up 
the Dutch bottle, that gentleman changed colour, changed his atti- 
tude, became extremely restless, and ended (when Venus ended) by 
being in a state of manifest anxiety, trepidation, and confusion. 

"Now, sir," said Venus, finishing off; "you best know what 
was in that Dutch bottle, and why you dug it up and took it away. 
I don't pretend to know anything more about it than I saw. All 
I know is this : I am proud of my calling after all (though it has 
been attended by one dreadful drawback which has told upon my 
heart, and almost equally upon my skeleton), and I mean to live by 
my calling. Putting the same meaning into other words, I do not 
mean to turn a single dishonest penny by this affair. As the best 
amends I can make you for having ever gone into it, I make 
known to you, as a warning, what Wegg has found out. My opin- 
ion is, that Wegg is not to be silenced at a modest price, and I 
build that opinion on his beginning to dispose of your property the 
moment he knew his power. Whether it's worth your while to 
silence him at any price, you will decide for yourself, and take your 
measures accordingly. As far as I am concerned, I have no price. 
If I am ever called upon for the truth, I tell it, but I want to do 
no more than I have now done and ended." 

" Thank'ee, Venus ! " said Mr. Boffin, with a hearty grij) of his 
hand ; " thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, Venus ! " And then walked up 
and down the little shop in great agitation. "But look here, 
Venus," he by-and-bye resumed, nervously sitting down again; "if 
I have to buy Wegg up, I shan't buy him any cheaper for your 
being out of it. Instead of his having half the money — it was 
to have been half, I suppose ? Share and share alike ? " 

" It was to have been half, sir," answered Venus. 

" Instead of that, he'll now have all. I shall pay the same, if 
not more. For you tell me he's an unconscionable dog, a ravenous 
rascal." 

"He is," said Venus. 

" Don't you think, Venus," insinuated Mr. Boffin, after looking 
at the fire for awhile — "don't you feel as if — you might like to 
pretend to be in it till Wegg was bought up, and then ease your 
mind by handing over to me what you had made believe to 
pocket ? " 

"No I don't, sir," returned Venus, very positively. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 555 

" Not to make amends ? " insinuated Mr. Boffin. 

" No, sir. It seems to me, after maturely thinking it over, that 
the best amends for having got out of the square is to get back 
into the square." 

" Humph ! " mused Mr. Boffin. " When you say the square, 
you mean " 

" I mean," said Venus, stoutly and shortly, " the right." 

" It appears to me," said Mr. Boffin, grumbling over the fire in 
an injured manner, " that the right is with me, if it's anywhere. 
I have much more right to the old man's money than the Crown 
can ever have. What was the Crown to him except the King's 
Taxes ? Whereas, me and my wife, we was all in all to him." 

Mr. Venus, with his head upon his hands, rendered melancholy 
by the contemplation of Mr. Boffin's avarice, only murmured to 
steep himself in the luxury of that frame of mind : " She did not 
wish so to regard herself, nor yet to be so regarded." 

"And how am I to live," asked Mr. Boffin, piteously, "if I'm 
to be going buying fellows up out of the little that I've got ? And 
how am I to set about it 1 When am I to get my money ready ? 
When am I to make a bid ? You haven't told me when he threat- 
ens to drop down upon me." 

Venus explained under what conditions, and with what views, 
the dropping down upon Mr. Boffin was held over until the Mounds 
should be cleared away. Mr. Boffin listened attentively. " I sup- 
pose," said he, with a gleam of hope, " there's no doubt about the 
genuineness and date of this confounded will ? " 

"None whatever," said Mr. Venus. 

" Where might it be deposited at present 1 " asked Mr. Boffin, 
in a wheedling tone. 

" It's in my possession, sir." 

" Is it ? " he cried, with great eagerness. " Now, for any liberal 
sum of money that could be agreed upon, Venus, would you put it 
in the fire?" 

"No, sir, I wouldn't," interrupted Mr. Venus. 

" Nor pass it over to me ? " 

" That would be the same thing. No, sir," said Mr. Venus. 

The Golden Dustman seemed about to pursue these questions, 
when a stumping noise was heard outside, coming towards the 
door. " Hush ! here's Wegg ! " said Venus. " Get behind the 
young alligator in the corner, Mr. Boffin, and judge him for yourself. 
I won't light a candle till he's gone ; there'll only be the glow of 
the fire ; Wegg's well acquainted with the alligator, and he won't 
take particular notice of him. Draw your legs in, Mr. Boffin, at 
present I see a pair of shoes at the end of his tail. Get your 



556 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

liead well behind his smile, Mr. Boffin, and you'll lie comfortable 
there; you'll find plenty of room behind his smile. He's a little 
dusty, but he's very like you in tone. Are you right, sir ? " 

Mr. Boffin had but whispered an affirmative response, when 
Wegg came stumping in. "Partner," said that gentleman in a 
sprightly manner, "how's yourself?" 

"Tolerable," returned Mr. Venus. " Not much to boast of." 

" In-deed ! " said Wegg : " sorry, partner, that you're not picking 
up faster, but your soul's too large for your body, sir ; that's where 
it is. And how's our stock in trade, partner? Safe bind, safe 
find, partner 1 Is that about it ? " 

" Do you wish to see it 1 " asked Venus. 

" If you please, partner," said Wegg, rubbing his hands. " I 
wish to see it jintly with yourself. Or, in similar words to some 
that was set to music some time back : 

' I wish you to see it with your eyes, 
And I will pledge with mine.' " 

Turning his back and turning a key, Mr. Venus produced the 
document, holding on by his usual corner. Mr. Wegg, holding on 
by the opposite corner, sat down on the seat so lately vacated by 
Mr. Boffin, and looked it over. " All right, sir," he slowly and 
unwillingly admitted, in his reluctance to loose his hold, "all 
right ! " And greedily watched his partner as he ' turned his back 
again, and turned his key again. 

" There's nothing new, I suppose 1 " said Venus, resuming his low 
chair behind the counter. 

"Yes there is, sir," replied Wegg; "there was something new 
this morning. That foxey old grasper and griper " 

"Mr. Boffin?" inquired Venus, with a glance towards the alliga- 
tor's yard or two of smile. 

" Mister be blowed ! " cried Wegg, yielding to his honest indig- 
nation. " Boffin. Dusty Boffin. That foxey old grunter and 
grinder, sir, turns into the yard this morning, to meddle with our 
property, a menial tool of his own, a young man by the name of 
Sloppy. Ecod, when I say to him, ' What do you want here, young 
man? This is a private yard,' he pulls out a paper from Boffin's 
other blackguard, the one I was passed over for. 'This is to 
authorise Sloppy to overlook the carting and to watch the work.' 
That's pretty strong, I think, Mr. Venus ? " 

" Rememljer he doesn't know yet of our claim on the property," 
suggested Venus. 

" Then he must have a hint of it," said Wegg, " and a strong one 
that'll jog his terrors a bit. Give him an inch, and he'll take an 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 557 

ell. Let him alone this time, and what'll he do with our property 
next 1 I tell you what, Mr. Venus ; it comes to this ; I must be 
overbearing with Boffin, or I shall fly into several pieces. I can't 
contain myself when I look at him. Every time I see him putting 
his hand in his pocket, I see him putting it into my pocket. Every 
time I hear him jingling his money, I hear him taking liberties 
with my money. Flesh and blood can't bear it. No," said Mr. 
Wegg, greatly exasperated, "and I'll go further. A wooden leg 
can't bear it ! " 

"But, Mr. Wegg," urged Venus, "it was your own idea that he 
should not be exploded upon, till the Mounds were carted away." 

"But it was likewise my idea, Mr. Venus," retorted Wegg, " that 
if he came sneaking and sniffing about the property, he should be 
threatened, given to understand that he has no right to it, and be 
made our slave. Wasn't that my idea, Mr. Venus ? " 

"It certainly was, Mr. Wegg." 

"It certainly was, as you say, partner," assented Wegg, put into 
a better humour by the ready admission. "Very well. I con- 
sider his planting one of his menial tools in the yard, an act of sneak- 
ing and sniffing. And his nose shall be put to the grindstone for 
it." 

"It was not your fault, Mr. Wegg, I must admit," said Venus, 
"that he got off with the Dutch bottle that night." 

"As you handsomely say again, partner! No, it was not my 
fault. I'd have had that bottle out of him. Was it to be borne 
that he should come, like a thief in the dark, digging among stuff 
that was far more ours than his (seeing that we could deprive him 
of every grain of it, if he didn't buy us at our own figure), and 
carrying off treasure from its bowels ? No, it was not to be borne. 
And for that, too, his nose shall be put to the grindstone." 

" How do you propose to do it, Mr. Wegg 1 " 

" To put his nose to the grindstone? I propose," returned that 
estimable man, " to insult him openly. And, if looking into this 
eye of mine, he dares to offer a word in answer, to retort upon him 
before he can take his breath, ' Add another word to that, you 
dusty old dog, and you're a beggar.' " 

" Suppose he says nothing, Mr. Wegg 1 " 

" Then," replied Wegg, " we shall have come to an understand- 
ing with very little trouble, and I'll break him and drive him, Mr. 
Venus. I'll put him in harness, and I'll bear him up tight, and 
I'll break him and drive him. The harder the old Dust is driven, 
sir, the higher he'll pay. And I mean to be paid high, Mr. Venus, 
I promise you." 

" You speak quite revengefully, Mr. Wegg." 



558 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Revengefully, sir ? Is it for him that I have declined and 
failed, night after night 1 Is it for his pleasure that I've waited 
at home of an evening, like a set of skittles, to be set up and 
knocked over, set up and knocked over, by whatever balls — or 
books — he chose to bring against me? Why, I'm a hundred 
times the man he is, sir ; live hundred times ! " 

Perhaps it was with the malicious intent of urging him on to his 
worst that Mr. Venus looked as if he doubted that. 

" What ? Was it outside the house at present ockypied, to its 
disgrace, by that minion of fortune and worm of the hour," said 
Wegg, falling back upon his strongest terms of reprobation, and 
slapping the counter, "that I, Silas Wegg, five hundred times the 
man he ever was, sat in all weathers, waiting for a errand or a 
customer ? Was it outside that very house as I first set eyes upon 
him, rolling in the lap of luxury, when I was a selling halfpenny 
ballads there for a living ? And am I to grovel in the dust for him 
to walk over ? No ! " 

There was a grin upon the ghastly countenance of the French 
gentleman under the influence of the firelight, as if he were comput- 
ing how many thousand slanderers and traitors array themselves 
against the fortunate, on premises exactly answering to those of 
Mr. Wegg. One might have fancied that the big-headed babies 
were toppling over with their hydrocephalic attempts to reckon 
up the children of men who transform their benefactors into their 
injurers by the same process. The yard or two of smile on the part 
of the alligator might have been invested with the meaning, "All 
about this was quite familiar knowledge down in the depths of the 
slime, ages ago." 

" But," said Wegg, possibly with some slight perception to the 
foregoing effect, " your speaking countenance remarks, Mr. Venus, 
that I'm duller and savager than usual. Perha,ps I have allowed 
myself to brood too much. Begone, dull Care ! 'Tis gone, sir. 
I've looked in upon you, and empire resumes her sway„ For, as 
the song says — subject to your correction, sir — 

' When the heart of a man is depressed with cares. 
The mist is dispelled if Venus appears. 
Like the notes of a fiddle, you sweetly, sir, sweetly, 
Raises our spirits and charms our ears.' 

Good night, sir." 

" I shall have a word or two to say to you, Mr. Wegg, before 
long," remarked Venus, "respecting my share in the project we've 
been speaking of." 

"My time, sir," returned Wegg, "is yours. In the meanwhile 



560 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

let it be fully understood that I shall not neglect bringing the 
grindstone to bear, nor yet bringing Dusty Boffin's nose to it. His 
nose once brought to it, shall be held to it by these hands, Mr. 
Venus, till the sparks flies out in showers." 

With this agreeable promise Wegg stumped out, and shut the 
shop-door after him. " Wait till I light a candle, Mr. Boffin," said 
Venus, " and you'll come out more comfortable." So, he lighting 
a candle and holding it up at arm's length, Mr. Boffin disengaged 
himself from behind the alligator's smile, with an expression of 
countenance so very downcast that it not only appeared as if the 
alligator had the whole of the joke to himself, but further as if it 
had been conceived and executed at Mr. Boffin's expense. 

"That's a treacherous fellow," said Mr. Boffin, dusting his arms 
and legs as he came forth, the alligator having been but musty com- 
pany. " That's a dreadful fellow." 

"The alligator, sir?" said Venus. 

" No, Venus, no. The Serpent." 

" You'll have the goodness to notice, Mr. Boffin," remarked 
Venus, "that I said nothing to him about my going out of the 
affiiir altogether, because I didn't wish to take you anyways by 
surprise. But I can't be too soon out of it for my satisfaction, Mr. 
Boffin, and I now put it to you when it will suit your views for me 
to retire?" 

" Thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, Venus ; but I don't know what to 
say," returned Mr. Boffin. " I don't know what to do. He'll drop 
down on me any way. He seems fully determined to drop down ; 
don't he?" 

Mr. Venus opined that such was clearly his intention. 

" You might be a sort of protection for me, if you remained in 
it," said Mr. Boffin; "you might stand betwixt him and me, and 
take the edge off him. Don't you feel as if you could make a 
show of remaining in it, Venus, till I had time to turn myself 
round ? " 

Venus naturally inquired how long Mr. Boffin thought it might 
take him to turn himself round ? 

" I am sure I don't know," was the answer, given quite at a 
loss. "Everything is so at sixes and sevens. If I had never 
come into the property, I shouldn't have minded. But being in 
it, it would be very trying to be turned out; now, don't you 
acknowledge that it \vould, Venus ? " 

Mr. Venus preferred, he said, to leave Mr. Boffin to arrive at 
his own conclusions on that delicate question. 

" I am sure I don't know what to do," said Mr. Boffin. " If I 
ask advice of any one else, it's only letting in another person to be 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 561 

bought out, and then I shall be ruined that way, and might as 
well have given up the property and gone slap to the workhouse. 
If I was to take advice of my young man, Rokesmith, I should 
have to buy him out. Sooner or later, of course, he'd drop down 
upon me, like Wegg. I was brought into the world to be dropped 
down upon, it appears to me." 

Mr. Venus listened to these lamentations in silence, while Mr. 
Boffin jogged to and fro, holding his pockets as if he had a pain 
in them. 

"After all, you haven't said what you mean to do yourself, 
Venus. When you do go out of it, how do you mean to go 1 " 

Venus replied that as Wegg had found the document and handed 
it to him, it was his intention to hand it back to Wegg, with the 
declaration that he himself would have nothing to say to it, or do 
with it, and that Wegg must act as he chose, and take the conse- 
quences. 

" And then he drops down with his whole weight upon me ! " 
cried Mr. Boffin, ruefully. " I'd sooner be dropped upon by you 
than by him, or even by you jintly, than by him alone ! " 

Mr. Venus could only repeat that it was his fixed intention to 
betake himself to the paths of science, and to walk in the same 
all the days of his life ; not dropping down upon his fellow-creat- 
ures until they were deceased, and then only to articulate them to 
the best of his humble ability. 

"How long could you be persuaded to keep up the appearance 
of remaining in it 1 " asked Mr. Boffin, retiring on his other idea. 
" Could you be got to do so till the Mounds are gone 1 " 

No. That would protract the mental uneasiness of Mr. Venus 
too long, he said. 

" Not if I was to show you reason now ? " demanded Mr. Boffin ; 
" not if I was to show you good and sufficient reason ? " 

If by good and sufficient reason Mr. Boffin meant honest and 
unimpeachable reason, that might weigh with Mr. Venus against 
his personal wishes and convenience. But he must add that he 
saw no opening to the possibility of such reason being shown him. 

"Come and see me, Venus," said Mr. Boffin, "at my house." 

"Is the reason there, sir?" asked Mr. Venus, with an incredu- 
lous smile and blink. 

"It may be, or may not be," said Mr. Boffin, "just as you view 
it. But in the meantime don't go out of the matter. Look here. 
Do this. Give me your word that you won't take any steps with 
Wegg, without my knowledge, just as I have given you my word 
that I won't without yours." 

" Done, Mr. Boffin ! " said Venus, after a brief consideration. 

2o 



562 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, Venus ! Done ! " 

" When shall I come to see you, Mr. Boffin ? " 

"When you like. The sooner the better. I must be going 
now. Good night, Venus." 

"Good night, air." 

"And good night to the rest of the present company," said 
Mr. Boffin, glancing round the shop. " They make a queer show, 
Venus, and I should like to be better acquainted with them some 
day. Good night, Venus, good night ! Thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, 
Venus ! " With that he jogged out into the street, and jogged 
upon his homeward way. 

"Now, I wonder," he meditated as he went along, nursing his 
stick, " whether it can be, that Venus is setting himself to get the 
better of Wegg ? Whether it can be, that he means, when I have 
bought Wegg out, to have me all to himself and to pick me clean 
to the bones 1 " 

It was a cunning and suspicious idea, quite in the way of his 
school of Misers, and he looked very cunning and suspicious as he 
went jogging through the streets. More than once or twice, more 
than twice or thrice, say half-a-dozen times, he took his stick from 
the arm on which he nursed it, and hit a straight sharp rap at the 
air with its head. Possibly the wooden countenance of Mr. Silas 
Wegg was incorporeally before him at those moments, for he hit 
with intense satisfaction. 

He was within a few streets of his own house, when a little 
private carriage, coming in the contrary direction, passed him, 
turned round, and passed him again. It was a little carriage of 
eccentric movement, for again he heard it stop behind him and 
turn round, and again he saw it pass him. Then it stopped, and 
then went on, out of sight. But, not far out of sight, for, when 
he came to the corner of his own street, there it stood again. 

There was a lady's face at the window as he came up with this 
carriage, and he was passing it when the lady softly called to him 
by his name. 

" I beg your pardon. Ma'am?" said Mr. Boffin, coming to a stop. 

"It is Mrs. Lammle," said the lady. 

Mr. Boffin went up to the window and hoped Mrs. Lammle was 
well. 

" Not very well, dear Mr. Boffin ; I have fluttered myself by 
being — perhaps foolishly — uneasy and anxious. I have been 
waiting for you some time. Can I speak to you ? " 

Mr. Boffin proposed that Mrs. Lammle should drive on to his 
house, a few hundred yards further. 

" I would rather not, Mr. Boffin, unless you particularly wish it. 



OUR MUTUAL FKIEND. 563 

I feel the difficulty and delicacy of the matter so much that I 
would rather avoid speaking to you at your own home. You 
must think this very strange?" 

Mr. Boffin said no, but meant yes. 

"It is because I am so grateful for the good opinion of all my 
friends, and am so touched by it, that I cannot bear to run the 
risk of forfeiting it in any case, even in the cause of duty. I have 
asked my husband (my dear Alfred, Mr. Boffin) whether it is the 
cause of duty, and he has most emphatically said Yes. I wish I 
had asked him sooner. It would have spared me much distress." 

(" Can this be more dropping down upon me ! " thought Mr. 
Boffin, quite bewildered.) 

" It was Alfred who sent me to you, Mr. Boffin. Alfred said, 
' Don't come back, Sophronia, until you have seen Mr. Boffin, and 
told him all. Whatever he may think of it, he ought certainly to 
know it.' Would you mind coming into the carriage 1 " 

Mr. Boffin answered, "Not at all," and took his seat at Mrs. 
Lammle's side. 

" Drive slowly anywhere," Mrs. Lammle called to her coachman, 
"and don't let the carriage rattle." 

" It 7nust be more dropping down, I think," said Mr. Boffin to 
himself. "What next?" 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST. 

The breakfast table at Mr. Boffin's was usually a very pleasant 
one, and was always presided over by Bella. As though he began 
each new day in his healthy natural character, and some waking 
hours were necessary to his relapse into the corrupting influences 
of his wealth, the face and the demeanour of the Golden Dustman 
were generally unclouded at that meal. It would have been easy 
to believe then, that there was no change in him. It was as the 
day went on that the clouds gathered, and the brightness of the 
morning became obscured. One might have said that the shadows 
of avarice and distrust lengthened as his own shadow lengthened, 
and that the night closed around him gradually. 

But, one morning long afterwards to be remembered, it was black 
midnight with the Golden Dustman when he first appeared. His 
altered character had never been so grossly marked. His bearing 
towards his Secretary was so charged with insolent distrust and ar- 
rogance, that the latter rose and left the table before breakfast was 



564 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

half done. The look he directed at the Secretary's retiring figure 
was so cunningly malignant, that Bella would have sat astounded 
and indignant, even though he had not gone the length of secretly 
threatening Rokesmith with his clenched fist as he closed the door. 
This unlucky morning, of all mornings in the year, was the morn- 
ing next after Mr. Boffin's interview with Mrs. Lammle in her little 
carriage. 

Bella looked to Mrs. Boffin's face for comment on, or explana- 
tion of, this stormy humour in her husband, but none was there. 
An anxious and a distressed observation of her own face was all 
she could read in it. When they were left alone together — which 
was not until noon, for Mr. Boffin sat long in his easy-chair, by 
turns jogging up and down the breakfast-room, clenching his fist 
and muttering — Bella, in consternation, asked her what had hap- 
pened, what was wrong? "I am forbidden to speak to you about 
it, Bella dear ; I mustn't tell you," was all the answer she could 
get. And still, whenever, in her wonder and dismay, she raised 
her eyes to Mrs. Boffin's face, she saw in it the same anxious and 
distressed observation of her own. 

Oppressed by her sense that trouble was impending, and lost in 
speculations why Mrs. Boffin should look at her as if she had any 
part in it, Bella found the day long and dreary. It was far on in 
the afternoon when, she being in her own room, a servant brought 
her a message from Mr. Boffin begging her to come to his. 

Mrs. Boffin was there, seated on a sofa, and Mr. Boffin was 
jogging up and down. On seeing Bella he stopped, beckoned her to 
him, and drew her arm through his. "Don't be alarmed, my dear," 
he said, gently ; " I am not angry with you. Why you actually 
tremble ! Don't be alarmed, Bella my dear. I'll see you righted." 

" See me righted ? " thought Bella. And then repeated aloud 
in a tone of astonishment : "see me righted, sir 1 " 

"Ay, ay!" said Mr. Boffin. "See you righted. Send Mr. 
Rokesmith here, you sir." 

Bella would have been lost in perplexity if there had been pause 
enough ; but the servant found Mr. Rokesmith near at hand, and 
he almost immediately presented himself. 

" Shut the door, sir ! " said Mr. Boffin. " I have got something 
to say to you which I fancy you'll not be pleased to hear." 

" I am sorry to reply, Mr. Boffin," returned the Secretary, as, 
having closed the door, he turned and faced him, " that I think 
that very likely." 

" What do you mean ? " blustered Mr. Boffin. 

" I mean that it has become no novelty to me to hear from your 
lips what I would rather not hear." 



566 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Oh ! Perhaps we shall change that," said Mr. Boffin, with a 
threatening roll of his head. 

" I hope so," returned the Secretary. He was quiet and respect- 
ful ; but stood, as Bella thought (and was glad to think), on his 
manhood too. 

"Now, sir," said Mr. Boffin, "look at this young lady on my 
arm." 

Bella involuntarily raising her eyes, when this sudden reference 
was made to herself, met those of Mr. Rokesmith. He was pale 
and seemed agitated. Then her eyes passed on to Mrs. Boffin's, 
and she met the look again. In a flash it enlightened her, and 
she began to understand what she had done. 

"I say to you, sir," Mr. Boffin repeated, "look at this young 
lady on my arm." 

"I do so," returned the Secretary. 

As his glance rested again on Bella for a moment, she thought 
there was reproach in it. But it is possible that the reproach was 
within herself. 

" How dare you, sir," said Mr. Boffin, " tamper, unknown to 
me, with this young lady ? How dare you come out of your sta- 
tion, and your place in my house, to pester this young lady with 
your impudent addresses ? " 

" I must decline to answer questions," said the Secretary, " that 
are so offensively asked." 

" You decline to answer ? " retorted Mr. Boffin. " You decline 
to answer, do you ? Then I'll tell you what it is, Rokesmith ; I'll 
answer for you. There are two sides in this matter, and I'll take 
'em separately. The first side is, sheer Insolence. That's the first 
side." 

The Secretary smiled with some bitterness, as though he would 
have said, " So I see and hear." 

"It was sheer Insolence in you, I tell you," said Mr. Boffin, 
" even to think of this young lady. This young lady was far above 
you. This young lady was no match for you. This young lady 
was lying in wait (as she was qualified to do) for money, and you 
had no money." 

Bella hung her head and seemed to shrink a little from Mr. Boffin's 
protecting arm. 

"What are you, I should like to know," pursued Mr. Boffin, 
" that you were to have the audacity to follow up this young lady ? 
This young lady was looking about the market for a good bid ; she 
wasn't in it to be snapped up by fellows that had no money to lay 
out ; nothing to buy with." 

" Oh, Mr. Boffin ! Mrs, Boffin, pray say something for me ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 567 

murmured Bella, disengaging her arm, and covering her face with 
her hands. 

"Old lady," said Mr. Boffin, anticipating his wife, "you hold 
your tongue. Bella, my dear, don't you let yourself be put out. 
I'll right you." 

"But you don't, you don't right me!" exclaimed Bella, with 
great emphasis. "You wrong me, wrong me ! " 

"Don't you be put out, my dear," complacently retorted Mr. 
Boffin. "I'll bring this young man to book. Now, you Roke- 
smith ! You can't decline to hear, you know, as well as to answer. 
You hear me tell you that the first side of your conduct was Inso- 
lence — Insolence and Presumption. Answer me one thing, if you 
can. Didn't this young lady tell you so herself ? " 

"Did I, Mr. Rokesmith?" asked Bella with her face still 
covered. " say, Mr. Rokesmith ! Did I ? " 

"Don't be distressed. Miss Wilfer; it matters very little now." 

" Ah ! You can't deny it, though ! " said Mr. Boffin, with a 
knowing shake of his head. 

"But I have asked him to forgive me since," cried Bella; '.'and 
I would ask him to forgive me now again, upon my knees, if it 
would spare him ! " 

Here Mrs. Boffin broke out a crying. 

" Old lady," said Mr. Boffin, " stop that noise ! Tender-hearted 
in you, Miss Bella; but I mean to have it out right through with 
this young man, having got him into a corner. Now, you Roke- 
smith. I tell you that's one side of your conduct — Insolence and 
Presumption. Now, I'm a coming to the other, which is much 
worse. This was a speculation of yours." 

" I indignantly deny it." 

" It's of no use your denying it ; it doesn't signify a bit whether 
you deny it or not ; I've got a head on my shoulders, and it ain't 
a baby's. What ! " said Mr. Boffin, gathering himself together in 
his most suspicious attitude, and wrinkling his face into a very 
map of curves and corners. "Don't I know what grabs are made 
at a man with money 1 If I didn't keep my eyes open, and my 
pockets buttoned, shouldn't I be brought to the workhouse before 
I knew where I was 1 Wasn't the experience of Dancer, and 
Elwes, and Hopkins, and Blewbury Jones, and ever so many more 
of 'em, similar to mine ? Didn't everybody want to make grabs 
at what they'd got, and bring 'em to poverty and ruin ? Weren't 
they forced to hide everything belonging to 'em, for fear it should 
be snatched from 'em ? Of course they was. I shall be told next 
that they didn't know human natur ! " 

" They ! Poor creatures," murmured the Secretary. 



568 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"What do you say?" asked Mr. Boffin, snapping at him. 
"However, you needn't be at the trouble of repeating it, for it 
ain't worth hearing, and won't go down with me. I'm a going to 
unfold your plan, before this young lady ; I'm a going to show this 
young lady the second view of you ; and nothing you can say will 
stave it oft'. (Now, attend here, Bella, my dear.) Rokesmith, 
you're a needy chap. You're a chap that I pick up in the street. 
Are you, or ain't you ? " 

"Go on, Mr. Boffin; don't appeal to me." 

"Not appeal to you" retorted Mr. Boffin as if he hadn't done 
so. " No, I should hope not ! Appealing to you would be rather 
a rum course. As I was saying, you're a needy chap that I pick 
up in the street. You come and ask me in the street to take you 
for a Secretary, and I take you. Very good." 

"Very bad," murmured the Secretary. 

" What do you say 1 " asked Mr. Boffin, snapping at him again. 

He returned no answer. Mr. Boffin, after eyeing him with a 
comical look of discomfited curiosity, was fain to begin afresh. 

" This Rokesmith is a needy young man that I take for my 
Secretary out of the open street. This Rokesmith gets acquainted 
with my aftairs, and gets to know that I mean to settle a sum of 
money on this young lady. ' Oho ! ' says this Rokesmith ; here 
Mr. Boffin clapped a finger against his nose, and tapped it several 
times with a sneaking air, as embodying Rokesmith confidentially 
confabulating with his own nose; " 'This will be a good haul; I'll 
go in for this ! ' And so this Rokesmith, greedy and hungering, 
begins a creeping on his hands and knees towards the money. Not 
so bad a speculation either : for if this young lady had had less spirit, 
or had had less sense, through being at all in the romantic line, by 
George he might have worked it out and made it pay ! But fort- 
unately she was too many for him, and a pretty figure he cuts now 
he is exposed. There he stands ! " said Mr. Boffin, addressing 
Rokesmith himself with ridiculous inconsistency. " Look at him ! " 

" Your unfortunate suspicions, Mr. Boffin " began the Sec- 
retary. 

" Precious unfortunate for you, I can tell you," said Mr. Boffin. 

" — are not to be combated by any one, and I address myself 
to no such hopeless task. But I will say a word upon the truth." 

" Yah ! Much you care about the truth," said Mr. Boffin, with 
a snap of his fingers. 

" Noddy ! My dear love ! " expostulated his wife. 

"Old lady," returned Mr. Boffin, "you keep still. I say to 
this Rokesmith here, much he cares about the truth. I tell him 
again, much he cares about the truth." 



OUR MUTUAL FUIEND. 569 

" Our connection being at an end, Mr. Boffin," said the Secretary, 
"it can be of veiy little moment to me what you say." 

" Oh ! You are knowing enough," retorted Mr. Boffin, with 
a sly look, " to have found out that our connection's at an end, eh ? 
But you can't get beforehand with me. Look at this in my hand. 
This is your pay, on your discharge. You can only follow suit. 
You can't deprive me of the lead. Let's have no pretending that 
you discharge yourself. I discharge you." 

" So that I go," remarked the Secretary, waving the point aside 
with his hand, "it is all one to me." 

" Is it?" said Mr. Boffin. " But it's two to me, let me tell you. 
Allowing a fellow that's found out to discharge himself, is one 
thing ; discharging him for insolence and presumption, and likewise 
for designs upon his master's money, is another. One and one's 
two ; not one. (Old lady, don't you cut in. You keep still.) " 

"Have you said all you wish to say to me?" demanded the 
Secretary. 

"I don't know whether I have or not," answered Mr. Boffin. 
" It depends." 

" Perhaps you will consider whether there are any other strong 
expressions that you would like to bestow upon me ? " 

"I'll consider that," said Mr. Boffin, obstinately, "at my con- 
venience, and not at yours. You want the last word. It may 
not be suitable to let you have it." 

" Noddy ! My dear, dear Noddy ! You sound so hard," cried 
poor Mrs. Boffin, not to be quite repressed. 

"Old lady," said her husband, but without harshness, "if you 
cut in when requested not, I'll get a pillow and cany you out of 
the room upon it. What do you want to say, you Rokesmith ? " 

" To you, Mr. Boffin, nothing. But to Miss Wilfer and to your 
good kind wife, a word." 

"Out with it then," replied Mr. Boffin, "and cut it short, for 
we've had enough of you." 

"I have borne," said the Secretary, in a low voice, "with my 
false position here, that I might not be separated from Miss Wilfer. 
To be near her, has been a recompense to me from day to day, even 
for the undeserved treatment I have had here, and for the degraded 
aspect in which she has often seen me. Since Miss Wilfer rejected 
me, I have never again urged my suit, to the best of my belief, 
with a spoken syllable or a look. But I have never changed in 
my devotion to her, except — if she will forgive my saying so — 
that it is deeper than it was, and better founded." 

"Now, mark this chap's saying Miss Wilfer, when he means 
£. s. d. ! " cried Mr. Boffin, with a cunning wink. " Now, mark 



570 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

this chap's making Miss Wilfer stand for Pounds, Shillings, and 
Pence ! " 

"My feeling for Miss Wilfer," pursued the Secretary, without 
deigning to notice him, " is not one to be ashamed of. I avow it. 
I love her. Let me go where I may when I presently leave this 
house, I shall go into a blank life, leaving her." 

" Leaving £ s. d. behind me," said Mr. Boffin, by way of com- 
mentary, with another v/ink. 

" That I am incapable," the Secretary went on, still without 
heeding him, " of a mercenary project, or a mercenary thought, in 
connection with Miss Wilfer, is nothing meritorious in me, because 
any prize that I could put before my fancy would sink into insig- 
nificance beside her. If the greatest wealth or the highest rank 
were hers, it would only be important in my sight as removing 
her still further from me, and making me more hopeless, if that 
could be. Say," remarked the Secretary, looking full at his late 
master, "say that with a word she could strip Mr. Boffin of his 
fortune and take jDossession of it, she would be of no greater worth 
in my eyes than she is." 

"What do you think by this time, old lady," asked Mr. Boffin, 
turning to his wife in a bantering tone, " about this Rokesmith 
here, and his caring for the truth? You needn't say what you 
think, my dear, because I don't want you to cut in, but you can 
think it all the same. As to taking possession of my property, I 
warrant you he wouldn't do that himself if he could." 

" No," returned the Secretary, with another full look. 

" Ha, ha, ha ! " laughed Mr. Boffin. " There's nothing like a 
good 'un while you are about it." 

"I have been for a moment," said the Secretary, turning from 
him and falling into his former manner, "diverted from the little 
I have to say. My interest in Miss Wilfer began when I first saw 
her ; even began when I had only heard of her. It was, in fact, the 
cause of my throwing myself in Mr. Boffin's way, and entering his 
service. Miss Wilfer has never known this until now. I men- 
tion it now, only as a corroboration (though I hope it may be 
needless) of my being free from the sordid design attributed to 
me." 

" Now, this is a very artful dodge," said Mr. Boffin, with a deep 
look. " This is a longer-headed schemer than I thought him. 
See how patiently and methodically he goes to work. He gets 
to know about me and my property, and about this young lady, and 
her share in poor young John's story, and he puts this and that 
together, and he says to himself, ' I'll get in with Boffin, and I'll 
get in with this young lady, and I'll work 'em both at the same 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 671 

time, and I'll bring my pigs to market somewhere.' I hear him 
say it, bless you ! Why, I look at him, now, and I see him say 
it." 

Mr. Boffin pointed at the culprit, as it were in the act, and 
hugged himself in his great penetration. 

" But luckily he hadn't to deal with the people he supposed, 
Bella, my dear ! " said Mr. Boffin. " No ! Luckily he had to 
deal with you, and with me, and with Daniel and Miss Dancer, 
and with Elwes, and with Vulture Hopkins, and with Blewbury 
Jones and all the rest of us, one down t'other come on. And he's 
beat ; that's what he is ; regularly beat. He thought to squeeze 
money out of us, and he has done for himself instead, Bella, my 
dear ! " 

Bella my dear made no response, gave no sign of acquiescence. 
When she had first covered her face she had sunk upon a chair 
with her hands resting on the back of it, and had never moved 
since. There was a short silence at this point, and Mrs. Boffin 
softly rose as if to go to her. But Mr. Boffin stopped her with a 
gesture, and she obediently sat down again and stayed where she 
was. 

" There's your pay, Mr. Rokesmith," said the Golden Dustman, 
jerking the folded scrap of paper he had in his hand towards his 
late Secretary. " I dare say you can stoop to pick it up, after 
what you have stooped to here." 

" I have stooped to nothing but this," Rokesmith answered as 
he took it from the ground ; "and this is mine, for I have earned 
it by the hardest of hard labour." 

"You're a pretty quick packer, I hope," said Mr. Boffin; "be- 
cause the sooner you are gone, bag and baggage, the better for all 
parties." 

" You need have no fear of my lingering." 

" There's just one thing though," said Mr. Boffin, " that I 
should like to ask you before we come to a good riddance, if it was 
only to show this young lady how conceited you schemers are, 
in thinking that nobody finds out how you contradict yourselves." 

"Ask me anything you wish to ask," returned Rokesmith, "but 
use the expedition that you recommend." 

" You pretend to have a mighty admiration for this young 
lady?" said Mr. Boffin, laying his hand protectingly on Bella's 
head without looking down at her. 

"I do not pretend." 

" Oh ! Well. You have a mighty admiration for this young 
lady — since you are so particular ? " 

"Yes." 



572 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"How do you reconcile that, with this young lady's being a 
weak-spiiited, improvident idiot, not knowing what was due to her- 
self, flinging up her money to the church-weathercocks, and racing 
off at a splitting pace for the workhouse ? " 

"I don't understand you." 

" Don't you ? Or won't you ? What else could you have made 
this young lady out to be, if she had listened to such addresses as 
yours ? " 

" What else, if I had been so happy as to win her affections and 
possess her heart ? " 

"Win her affections," retorted Mr. Boffin, with ineffable con- 
tempt, " and possess her heart ! Mew says the cat, Quack-quack 
says the duck. Bow-wow-wow says the dog ! Win her affections 
and possess her heart ! Mew, Quack-quack, Bow-wow ! " 

John Rokesmith stared at him in his outburst, as if with some 
faint idea that he had gone mad. 

" What is due to this young lady," said Mr. Boffin, "is Money, 
and this young lady right well knows it." 

"You slander the young lady." 

" You slander the young lady ; you with your affections and hearts 
and trumpery," returned Mr. Boffin. "It's of a piece with the 
rest of your behaviour. I heard of these doings of yours only last 
night, or you should have heard of 'em from me, sooner, take your 
oath of it. I heard of 'em from a lady with as good a headpiece 
as the best, and she knows this young lady, and I know this 
young lady, and we all three know that it's Money she makes a 
stand for — money, money, money — and that you and your affec- 
tions and hearts are a Lie, sir ! " 

"Mrs. Boffin," said Rokesmith, quietly turning to her, "for your 
delicate and unvarying kindness I thank you with the warmest 
gratitude. Good bye ! Miss Wilfer, good bye ! " 

"And now, my dear," said Mr. Boffin, laying his hand on Bella's 
head again, "you may begin to make yourself quite comfortable, 
and I hope you feel that you've been righted." 

But Bella was so far from appearing to feel it, that she shrank 
from his hand and from the chair, and, starting up in an incoherent 
passion of tears, and stretching out her arms, cried, "Oh, Mr. Roke- 
smith, before you go, if you could but make me poor again ! Oh ! 
Make me poor again, Somebody, I beg and pray, or my heart will 
break if this goes on ! Pa, dear, make me poor again and take me 
home ! I was bad enough there, but I have been so much worse 
here. Don't give me money, Mr. Boffin, I won't have money. 
Keep it away from me, and only let me speak to good little Pa, 
and lay my head upon his shoulder, and tell him all my griefs. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 573 

Nobody else can understand me, nobody else can comfort me, 
nobody else knows how unworthy I am, and yet can love me like 
a little child. I am better with Pa than any one — more innocent, 
more sorry, more glad ! " So, crying out in a wild way that she 
could not bear this, Bella dropped her head on Mrs. Boffin's ready 
breast. 

John Rokesmith from his place in the room, and Mr. Boffin 
from his, looked on at her in silence until she was silent herself. 
Then Mr. Boffin observed in a soothing and comfortable tone, 
" There, my dear, there ; you are righted now, and it's all right. 
I don't wonder, I'm sure, at your being a little flurried by having 
a scene with this fellow, but it's all over, my dear, and you're 
righted, and it's — and it's all right ! " Which Mr. Boffin re- 
peated with a highly satisfied air of completeness and finality. 

" I hate you ! " cried Bella, turning suddenly upon him, with a 
stamp of her little foot — "at least, I can't hate you, but I don't 
like you ! " 

" HuL — LO ! " exclaimed Mr. Boffin in an amazed undertone. 

"You're a scolding, unjust, abusive, aggravating, bad old creat- 
ure ! " cried Bella. " I am angry with my ungrateful self for call- 
ing you names ; but you are, you are ; you know you are ! " 

Mr. Boffin stared here, and stared there, as misdoubting that he 
must be in some sort of fit. 

"I have heard you with shame," said Bella. "With shame for 
myself, and with shame for you. You ought to be above the base 
tale-bearing of a time-serving woman ; but you are above nothing 
now." 

Mr. Boffin, seeming to become convinced that this was a fit, 
rolled his eyes and loosened his neckcloth. 

" When I came here, I respected you and honoured you, and I 
soon loved you," cried Bella. "And now I can't bear the sight of 
you. At least, I don't know that I ought to go so far as that — 
only you're a — you're a Monster ! " Having shot this bolt out 
with a great expenditure of force, Bella hysterically laughed and 
cried together. 

" The best wish I can ^vish you is," said Bella, returning to the 
charge, "that you had not one single farthing in the world. If 
any true friend and well-wisher could make you a bankrupt, 
you would be a Duck ; but as a man of property you are a 
Demon ! " 

After despatching this second bolt with a still greater expendi- 
ture of force, Bella laughed and cried still more. 

" Mr. Rokesmith, pray stay one moment. Pray hear one word 
from me before you go ! I am deeply sorry for the reproaches you 



674 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

have borne on my account. Out of the depths of my heart I 
earnestly and truly beg your pardon." 

As she stepped towards him, he met her. As she gave him her 
hand, he put it to his lips, and said, " God bless you ! " No 
laughing was mixed with Bella's crying then ; her tears were pure 
and fervent. 

" There is not an ungenerous word that I have heard addressed 
to you — heard witli scorn and indignation, Mr. Rokesmith — but 
it has wounded me far more than you, for I have deserved it, and 
you never have. Mr. Rokesmith, it is to me you owe this per- 
verted account of what passed between us that night. I parted 
with the secret, even while I was angry with myself for doing so. 
It was very bad in me, but indeed it was not wicked. I did it in 
a moment of conceit and folly — one of my many such moments 

— one of my many such hours — years. As I am punished for it 
severely, try to forgive it ! " 

"I do with all my soul." 

" Thank you. Oh, thank you ! Don't part from me till I have 
said one other word, to do you justice. The only fault you can be 
truly charged with, in having spoken to me as you did that night 

— with how much delicacy and how much forbearance no one but 
I can know or be grateful to you for — is that you laid yourself 
open to be slighted by a worldly shallow girl whose head was 
turned, and who was quite unable to rise to the worth of what 
you offered her. Mr. Rokesmith, that girl has often seen herself 
in a pitiful and poor light since, but never in as pitiful and poor a 
light as now, when the mean tone in which she answered you — 
sordid and vain girl that she was — has been echoed in her ears by 
Mr. Boffin." 

He kissed her hand again. 

" Mr. Boffin's speeches were detestable to me, shocking to me," 
said Bella, startling that gentleman with another stamp of her lit- 
tle foot. "It is quite true that there was a time, and very lately, 
when I deserved to be so ' righted,' Mr. Rokesmith ; but I hope 
that I shall never deserve it again ! " 

He once more put her hand to his lips, and then relinquished it, 
and left the room. Bella was hurrying back to the chair in which 
she had hidden her face so long, when, catching sight of Mrs. 
Boffin by the way, she stopped at her. "He is gone," sobbed 
Bella, indignantly, despairingly, in fifty ways at once, with her 
arms round Mrs, Boffin's neck. "He has been most shamefully 
abused, and most unjustly and most basely driven away, and I am 
the cause of it ! " 

All this time Mr. Boffin had been rolling his eyes over his 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 575 

loosened neckerchief, as if his fit were still upon him. Appearing 
now to think that he was coming to, he stared straight before him 
for a while, tied his neckerchief again, took several long inspira- 
tions, swallowed several times, and ultimately exclaimed with a 
deep sigh, as if he felt himself on the whole better : " Well ! " 

No word, good or bad, did Mrs. Boffin say; but she tenderly 
took care of Bella, and glanced at her husband as if for orders. 
Mr. Boffin, without imparting any, took his seat on a chair over 
against them, and there sat leaning forward, with a fixed coun- 
tenance, his legs apart, a hand on each knee, and his elbows 
squared, until Bella should dry her eyes and raise her head, which 
in the fulness of time she did. 

" I must go home," said Bella, rising hurriedly. " I am very 
grateful to you for all you have done for me, but I can't stay here." 

" My darling girl ! " remonstrated Mrs. Boffin. 

*' No, I can't stay here," said Bella ; "I can't indeed. — Ugh ! 
you vicious old thing ! " (This to Mr. Boffin.) 

"Don't be rash, my love," urged Mrs. Boffin. "Think well of 
what you do." 

"Yes, you had better think well," said Mr. Boffin. 

" I shall never more think well of ^oi«," cried Bella, cutting him 
short, with intense defiance in her expressive little eyebrows, and 
championship of the late Secretary in every dimple. " No ! Never 
again ! Your money has changed you to marble. You are a hard- 
hearted Miser. You are worse than Dancer, worse than Hopkins, 
worse than Blackberry Jones, worse than any of the wretches. 
And more ! " proceeded Bella, breaking into tears again, " you 
were wholly undeserving of the Gentleman you have lost." 

" Why, you don't mean to say, Miss Bella," the Golden Dust- 
man slowly remonstrated, "that you set up Rokesmith against 
me ? " 

" I do ! " said Bella. " He is worth a Million of you." 

Very pretty she looked, though very angry, as she made herself 
as tall as she possibly could (which was not extremely tall), and 
utterly renounced her patron with a lofty toss of her rich brown 
head. 

" I would rather he thought well of me," said Bella, " though he 
swept the street for bread, than that you did, though you splashed 
the mud upon him from the wheels of a chariot of pure gold. — 
There ! " 

" Well I'm sure ! " cried Mr. Boffin, staring. 

" And for a long time past, when you have thought you set your- 
self above him, I have only seen you under his feet," said Bella — 
" There ! And throughout I saw in him tlie master, and I saw in 



576 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

you the man — There ! And when you used him shamefully, I 
took his part and loved him — There ! I boast of it ! " After 
which strong avowal Bella underwent reaction, and cried to any 
extent, with her face on the back of her chair. 

"Now, look here," said Mr. Boffin, as soon as he could find an 
opening for breaking the silence and striking in. " Give me your 
attention, Bella. I am not angry." 

"Ifim/" said Bella. 

" I say," resumed the Golden Dustman, " I am not angry, and I 
mean kindly to you, and I want to overlook this. So you'll stay 
where you are, and we'll agree to say no more about it." 

"No, I can't stay here," cried Bella, rising hurriedly again ; "I 
can't think of staying here. I must go home for good." 

" Now, don't be silly," Mr. Boffin reasoned. " Don't do what 
you can't undo ; don't do what you're sure to be sorry for." 

" I shall never be sorry for it," said Bella ; " and I should always 
be sorry, and should every minute of my life despise myself, if I re- 
mained here after what has happened." 

"At least, Bella," argued Mr. Boffin, "let there be no mistake 
about it. Look before you leap, you know. Stay where you are, 
and all's well, and all's as it was to be. Go away, and you can 
never come back." 

"I know that I can never come back, and that's what I mean," 
said Bella. 

"You mustn't expect," Mr. Boffin pursued, "that I'm a going to 
settle money on you, if you leave us like this, because I am not. 
No, Bella ! Be careful ! Not one brass farthing." 

" Expect ! " said Bella, haughtily. " Do you think that any 
power on earth could make me take it, if you did, sir 1 " 

But there was Mrs. Boffin to part from, and, in the full flush of 
her dignity, the impressible little soul collapsed again. Down 
upon her knees before that good woman, she rocked herself upon 
her breast, and cried, and sobbed, and folded her in her arms with 
all her might. 

" You're a dear, a dear, the best of dears ! " cried Bella. " You're 
the best of human creatures. I can never be thankful enough to 
you, and can never forget you. If I should live to be blind and 
deaf, I know I shall see and hear you, in my fancy, to the last of 
my dim old days ! " 

Mrs. Boffin wept most heartily, and embraced her with all fond- 
ness ; but said not one single word except that she was her dear 
girl. She said that often enough, to be sure, for she said it over 
and over again ; but not one word else. 

Bella broke from her at length, and was going weeping out of 



■ >'JR MUTUAL FRIEND. 577 

..>, vvben in her own little queer affectionate way, she half 
' towards Mr. Boffin. 

• .:ry glad," sobbed Bella, "that I called yon names, sir, 

iiehly dcf-erved it. But I am very sorry that I called 

>ecause ycu used to be so different. Say good bye ! " 

'," said Mr. Boffin, shortly. 

; I'd&w which of your hands was the least spoilt, I would 

to let me +on' h it," said Bella, "for the last time. But 

use I repv • :>f what I have said to you. For I don't. 

left liand." said Mr. Boffin, holding it out in a stolid 
"s the lea.- 1 used." 

..:! been wonderfully good and kind to me," said Bella, 
t for that. You have been as bad as bad could be to 
M; h, and I iihrow it away for that. Thank you for my- 

bye!" 

" said M •. Boffin as before. 
; hiv. v:und the neck and kissed him, and ran out 

.. d sat down on the floor in her own room 

i.) , But the day was declining and she had no 

<;5bo upv i- 'd all the places where she kept her dresses ; 

,'- those she aad brought with her, leaving all the rest ; 

rreat miB 1 apen bundle of them to be sent for after- 

;-'.ke one • r the others," said Bella, tying the knots of 
y tight, iu the severity of her resolution. " I'll leave 
. s behind, and begin again entirely on my own account." 
iiition mi' ■ t be thoroughly carried into practice, she 
the drc she wore for that in which she had come 
i;r^^ ■ liven the bonnet she put on was the bonnet 

:i ;. I e Boffin chariot at Holloway. 

3," said Bella. " It's a little trying, but 
in cold water, and I won't cry any more, 
t room to me, dear room. Adieu ! We 
again." 

her fingers to it she softly closed the door, 
)t down the great staircase, pausing and 
ii^ t she might meet none of the household. 

'T'^ • lut, and she got down to the hall in quiet, 

lie iate 8s ci etary's room stood open. She peeped in 
. and dlviucl from the emptiness of his table, and the 

g<'r' ■^nce of tlnngs, that he was already gone. Softly 

op ^ '^ '^d] loor, and softly closing it upon herself, she 

2p 



578 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

turned and kissed it on the outside — insensible old combination 
of wood and iron that it was ! — before she ran away from the 
house at a swift pace. 

" That was well done ! " panted Bella, slackening in the next 
street, and subsiding into a walk. " If I had left myself any breath 
to cry with, I should have cried again. Now poor dear darling 
little Pa, you are going to see your lovely woman unexpectedly." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS. 

The City looked unpromising enough, as Bella made her way 
along its gritty streets. Most of its money-mills were slackening 
sail, or had left off grinding for the day. The master-millers had 
already departed, and the journeymen were departing. There was 
a jaded aspect on the business lanes and courts, and the very pave- 
ments had a weary appearance, confused by the tread of a million 
of feet. There must be hours of night to temper down the day's 
distraction of so feverish a place. As yet the worry of the newly- 
stopped whirling and grinding on the part of the money-mills seemed 
to linger in the air, and the quiet was more like the prostration of 
a spent giant than the repose of one who was renewing his strength. 

If Bella thought, as she glanced at the mighty Bank, how agree- 
able it would be to have an hour's gardening there, with a bright 
copper shovel, among the money, still she was not in an avaricious 
vein. Much improved in that respect, and with certain half-formed 
images which had little gold in their composition, dancing before 
her bright eyes, she arrived in the drug-flavoured region of Mincing 
Lane, with the sensation of having just opened a drawer in a chem- 
ist's shop. 

The counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles wa? 
pointed out by an elderly female accustomed to the care of offic^^ 
who dropped upon Bella out of a public-house, wiping her mou.li^ 
and accounted for its humidity on natural principles well knowi to 
the physical sciences, by explaining that she had looked in at the 
door to see what o'clock it was. The counting-house was a wall- 
eyed ground-floor by a dark gateway, and Bella was considering^ as 
she approached it, could there be any precedent in the City f(r her 
going in and asking for R. Wilfer, when whom should sh^ see, 
sitting at one of the windows with the plate-glass sash rais'd, but 
R. Wilfer himself, preparing to take a slight refection. 

On approaching nearer, Bella discerned that the reection had 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 579 

the appearance of a small cottage-loaf and a pennyworth of milk. 
Simultaneously with this discovery on her part, her father discov- 
ered her, and invoked the echoes of Mincing Lane to exclaim " My 
gracious me ! " 

He then came cherubically flying out without a hat, and embraced 
her, and handed her in. "For it's after hours and I am all alone, 
my dear," he explained, "and am having — as I sometimes do, 
when they are all gone — a quiet tea." 

Looking round the office, as if her father were a captive and this 
his cell, Bella hugged him and choked him to her heart's content. 

"I never was so surprised, my dear," said her father. "I 
couldn't believe my eyes. Upon my life, I thought they had taken 
to lying ! The idea of your coming down the Lane yourself ! Why 
didn't you send the footman down the Lane, my dear ? " 

" I have brought no footman with me. Pa." 

" Oh, indeed ! But you have brought the elegant turn-out, my 
love?" 

"No, Pa." 

" You never can have walked, my dear ? " 

"Yes, I have. Pa." 

He looked so very much astonished, that Bella could not make 
up her mind to break it to him just yet. 

" The consequence is, Pa, that your lovely woman feels a little 
faint, and would very much like to share your tea." 

The cottage-loaf and the pennyworth of milk had been set forth 
on a sheet of paper on the window-seat. The cherubic pocket- 
knife, with the first bit of the loaf still on its point, lay beside them 
where it had been hastily thrown down. Bella took the bit 
off, and put it in her mouth. " My dear child," said her father, 
" the idea of your partaking of such lowly fare ! But, at least, 
you must have your own loaf and your own penn'orth. One 
moment, my dear. The Dairy is just over the way and round the 
corner." 

Regardless of Bella's dissuasions he ran out, and quickly returned 
with the new supply. " My dear child," he said, as he spread it on 

another piece of paper before her, " the idea of a splendid ! " 

and then looked at her figure, and stopped short. 

"What's the matter. Pa?" 

" — of a splendid female," he resumed, more slowly, "putting 
up with such accommodation as the present ! — Is that a new dress 
you have on, my dear ? " 

" No, Pa, an old one. Don't you remember it ? " 

" Why, I thought I remembered it, my dear ! " 

" You should, for you bought it. Pa." 



580 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Yes, I thought I bought it, my dear ! " said the cherub, giving 
himself a little shake, as if to rouse his faculties. 

"And have you grown so fickle that you don't like your own 
taste, Pa, dear?" 

"Well, my love," he returned, swallowing a bit of the cottage- 
loaf with considerable effort, for it seemed to stick by the way : "I 
should have thought it was hardly sufficiently splendid for existing 
circumstances." 

"And so. Pa," said Bella, moving coaxingly to his side, instead 
of remaining opposite, "you sometimes have a quiet tea here all 
alone ? I am not in the tea's way, if I draw my arm over your 
shoulder like this, Pa?" 

" Yes, my dear, and no, my dear. Yes to the first question, and 
certainly Not to the second. Respecting the quiet tea, my dear, 
why you see the occupations of the day are sometimes a little 
wearing ; and if there's nothing interposed between the day and your 
mother, why she is sometimes a little wearing too." 

"I know. Pa." 

"Yes, my dear. So sometimes I put a quiet tea at the window 
here, with a little quiet contemplation of the Lane (which comes 
soothing), between the day, and domestic " 

" Bliss," suggested Bella, sorrowfully. 

"And domestic Bliss," said her father, quite contented to accept 
the phrase. 

Bella kissed him. "And it is in this dark, dingy place of cap- 
tivity, poor dear, that you pass all the hours of your life when you 
are not at home ? " 

" Not at home, or not on the road there, or on the road here, my 
love. Yes. You see that little desk in the corner ? " 

" In the dark corner, furthest both from the light and from the 
fireplace ? The shabbiest desk of all the desks ? " 

" Now, does it really strike you in that point of view, my dear ? " 
said her father, surveying it artistically with his head on one side : 
" that's mine. That's called Rumty's Perch." 

" Whose Perch 1 " asked Bella, with great indignation. 

"Rumty's. You see, being rather high and up two steps they 
call it a Perch. And they call me Rumty." 

" How dare they ! " exclaimed Bella. 

"They're playful, Bella, my dear; they're playful. They're 
more or less younger than I am, and they're playful. What does 
it matter ? It might be Surly, or Sulky, or fifty disagreeable 
things that I really shouldn't like to be considered. But Rumty ! 
Lor, why not Rumty ? " 

To inflict a heavy disappointment on this sweet nature, which 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 581 

had been, through all her caprices, the object of her recognition, 
love, and admiration from infancy, Bella felt to be the hardest task 
of her hard day. "I should have done better," she thought, "to 
tell him at first ; I should have done better to tell him just now, 
when he had some slight misgiving ; he is quite happy again, and 
I shall make him wretched." 

He was falling back on his loaf and milk, with the pleasantest 
composure, and Bella stealing her arm a little closer about him, 
and at the same time sticking up his hair with an irresistible pro- 
pensity to play with him, founded on the habit of her whole life, 
had prepared herself to say : "Pa, dear, don't be cast down, but 
I must tell you something disagreeable ! " when he interrupted her 
in an unlooked-for manner. 

"My gracious me!" he exclaimed, invoking the Mincing Lane 
echoes as before. " This is very extraordinary ! " 

"What is, Pa?" 

" Why here's Mr. Rokesmith now ! " 

"No, no. Pa, no," cried Bella, greatly flurried. "Surely not." 

" Yes, there is ! Look here ! " 

Sooth to say, Mr. Rokesmith not only passed the window, but 
came into the counting-house. And not only came into the count- 
ing-house, but, finding himself alone there with Bella and her 
father, rushed at Bella and caught her in his arms, with the raptu- 
rous words, " My dear, dear girl ; my gallant, generous, disinterested, 
courageous, noble girl ! " And not only that even (which one might 
have thought astonishment enough for one dose), but Bella, after 
hanging her head for a moment, lifted it up and laid it on his breast, 
as if that were her head's chosen and lasting resting-place ! 

"I knew you would come to him, and I followed you," said 
Rokesmith. " My love, my life ! You are mine ? " 

To which Bella responded, " Yes, I am yours if you think me 
worth taking ! " And after that, seemed to shrink to next to nothing 
in the clasp of his arms, partly because it was such a strong one on 
his part, and partly because there was such a yielding to it on hers. 

The cherub, whose hair would have done for itself, under the 
influence of this amazing spectacle, what Bella had just now done 
for it, staggered back into the window-seat from which he had 
risen, and surveyed the pair with his eyes dilated to their utmost. 

"But we must think of dear Pa," said Bella; "I haven't told 
dear Pa; let us speak to Pa." Upon which they turned to do so. 

"I wish first, my dear," remarked the chemb faintly, "that 
you'd have the kindness to sprinkle me with a little milk, for I 
feel as if I was — Going." 

In fact, the good little fellow had become alarmingly limp, and 



582 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

his senses seemed to be rapidly escaping, from the knees upward. 
Bella sprinkled him with kisses instead of milk, but gave him a 
little of that article to drink ; and he gradually revived under her 
caressing care. 

"We'll break it to you gently, dearest Pa," said Bella. 

"My dear," returned the cherub, looking at them both, "you 
broke so much in the first — Gush, if I may so express myself — 
that I think I am equal to a good large breakage now." 

"Mr. Wilfer," said John Rokesmith, excitedly and joyfully, 
" Bella takes me, though I have no fortune, even no present occu- 
pation ; nothing but what I can get in the life before us. Bella 
takes me ! " 

"Yes, I should rather have inferred, my dear sir," returned the 
cherub feebly, " that Bella took you, from what I have within these 
few minutes remarked." 

"You don't know. Pa," said Bella, "how ill I have used him ! " 

"You don't know, sir," said Rokesmith, "what a heart she 
has ! " 

"You don't know, Pa," said Bella, "what a shocking creature 
I w^as growing, when he saved me from myself ! " 

"You don't know, sir," said Rokesmith, "what a sacrifice she 
has made for me ! " 

" My dear Bella," replied the cherub, still pathetically scared, 
"and my dear John Rokesmith, if you will allow me so to call 
you " 

"Yes, do. Pa, do !" urged Bella. "/ allow you, and my will 
is his law. Isn't it — dear John Rokesmith ? " 

There was an engaging shyness in Bella, coupled with an 
engaging tenderness of love and confidence and pride, in thus first 
calling him by name, which made it quite excusable in John Roke- 
smith to do what he did. What he did was, once more to give 
her the appearance of vanishing as aforesaid. 

"I think, my dears," observed the chemb, "that if you could 
make it convenient to sit one on one side of me, and the other on 
the other, we should get on rather more consecutively, and make 
things rather plainer. John Rokesmith mentioned, a while ago, 
that he had no present occupation." 

" None," said Rokesmith. 

" No, Pa, none," said Bella. 

"From which I argue," proceeded the cherub, "that he has left 
Mr. Bofiin?" 

"Yes, Pa. And so " 

" Stop a bit, my dear. I wish to lead up to it by degrees. And 
that Mr. Bofl&n has not treated him well 1 " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 583 

" Has treated him most shamefully, dear Pa ! " cried Bella, with 
a flashing face. 

" Of which," pursued the cherub, enjoining patience with his 
hand, "a certain mercenary young person distantly related to 
myself could not approve? Am I leading up to it right?" 

" Could not approve, sweet Pa," said Bella, with a tearful laugh 
and a joyful kiss. 

"Upon which," pursued the cherub, "the certain mercenary 
young person distantly related to myself, having previously ob- 
served and mentioned to myself that prosperity was spoiling Mr. 
Boffin, felt that she must not sell her sense of what was right and 
what was wrong, and what was true and what was false, and what 
was just and what was unjust, for any price that could be paid to 
her by any one alive ? Am I leading up to it right ? " 

With another tearful laugh Bella joyfully kissed him again. 

"And therefore — and therefore," the cherub went on in a glow- 
ing voice, as Bella's hand stole gradually up his waistcoat to his 
neck, "this mercenary young person distantly related to myself 
refused the price, took off the splendid fashions that were part of 
it, put on the comparatively poor dress that I had last given her, 
and trusting to my supporting her in what was right, came straight 
to me. Have I led ^Xp to it ? " 

Bella's hand was round his neck by this time, and her face was 
on it. 

" The mercenary young person distantly related to myself," said 
her good father, " did well ! The mercenary young person dis- 
tantly related to myself did not trust to me in vain ! I admire 
this mercenary young person distantly related to myself, more in 
this dress than if she had come to me in China silks, Cashmere 
shawls, and Golconda diamonds. I love this young person dearly. 
I say to the man of this young person's heart, out of my heart and 
with all of it, ' My blessing on this engagement betwixt you, and 
she brings you a good fortune when she brings you the poverty 
she has accepted for your sake and the honest truth's ! ' " 

The stanch little man's voice failed him as he gave John Roke- 
smith his hand, and he was silent, bending his face low over his 
daughter. But, not for long. He soon looked up, saying in a 
sprightly tone : 

" And now, my dear child, if you think you can entertain John 
Rokesmith for a minute and a half, I'll run over to the Dairy, and 
fetch hiiji a cottage-loaf and a drink of milk, that we may all have 
tea together." 

It was, as Bella gaily said, like the supper provided for the 
three nursery hobgoblins at their house in the forest, without their 



684 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

thunderous low growlings of the alarming discovery, " Somebody's 
been drinking my milk ! " It was a delicious repast ; by far the 
most delicious that Bella, or John Rokesmith, or even R. Wilfer, 
had ever made. The uncongenial oddity of its surroundings, with 
the two brass knobs of the iron safe of Chicksey, Veneering, and 
Stobbles staring from a corner, like the eyes of some dull dragon, 
only made it the more delightful. 

"To think," said the cherub, looking round the office with 
unspeakable enjoyment, " that anything of a tender nature should 
come off here, is what tickles me. To think that ever I should 
have seen my Bella folded in the arms of her future husband here^ 
you know ! " 

It was not until the cottage-loaves and the milk had for some 
time disappeared, and the foreshado wings of night were creeping 
over Mincing Lane, that the cherub by degrees became a little 
nervous, and said to Bella, as he cleared his throat : 

" Hem ! — Have you thought at all about your mother, my 
dear % " 

" Yes, Pa." 

" And your sister Lawy, for instance, my dear % " 

" Yes, Pa. I think we had better not enter into particulars at 
home. I think it will be quite enough to say that I had a 
difference with Mr. Boffin, and have left for good." 

"John Rokesmith being acquainted with your Ma, my love," 
said her father, after some slight hesitation, "I need have no 
delicacy in hinting before him that you may perhaps find your 
Ma a little wearing." 

"A little, patient Pa?" said Bella with a tuneful laugh: the 
tunefuller for being so loving in its tone. 

" Well ! We'll say, strictly in confidence among ourselves, wear- 
ing ; we won't qualify it," the cherub stoutly admitted. "And your 
sister's temper is wearing." 

" I don't mind. Pa." 

" And you must prepare yourself, you know, my precious," said 
her father, with much gentleness, " for our looking very poor and 
meagre at home, and being at the best but very uncomfortable, 
after Mr. Boffin's house." 

"I don't mind. Pa. I could bear much harder trials 

for John." 

The closing words were not so softly and blushingly said but 
that John heard them, and showed that he heard them by again 
assisting Bella to another of those mysterious disappearances. 

" Well ! " said the cherub gaily, and not expressing disapproval, 
"when you — when you come back from retirement, my love, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 585 

and reappear on the surface, I think it will be time to lock up 
and go." 

If the counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles had 
ever been shut up by three happier people, glad as most people 
were to shut it up, they must have been superlatively happy 
indeed. But first Bella mounted upon Rumty's Perch, and said, 
" Show me what you do here all day long, dear Pa. Do you write 
like this ? " laying her round cheek upon her plump left arm, and 
losing sight of her pen in waves of hair, in a highly unbusiness-like 
manner. Though John Rokesmith seemed to like it. 

So, the three hobgoblins, having effaced all traces of their feast, 
and swept up the crumbs, came out of Mincing Lane to walk 
to Holloway ; and if two of the hobgoblins didn't wish the dis- 
tance twice as long as it was, the third hobgoblin was much mis- 
taken. Indeed, that modest spirit deemed himself so much in the 
way of their deep enjoyment of the journey, that he apologetically 
remarked : "I think, my dears, I'll take the lead on the other side 
of the road, and seem not to belong to you." Which he did, cheru- 
bically strewing the path with smiles, in the absence of flowers. 

It was almost ten o'clock when they stopped within view of 
Wilfer Castle ; and then, the spot being quiet and deserted, Bella 
began a series of disappearances which threatened to last all night. 

"I think, John, "the cherub hinted at last, "that if you can spare 
me the young person distantly related to myself, I'll take her in." 

"I can't spare her," answered John, "but I must lend her to 
you. — My Darling ! " A word of magic which caused Bella in- 
stantly to disappear again. 

" Now, dearest Pa," said Bella, when she became visible, " put 
your hand in mine, and we'll run home as fast as ever we can run, 
and get it over. Now, Pa. Once ! " 

" My dear," the cherub faltered, with something of a craven air, 
"I was going to observe that if your mother " 

"You mustn't hang back, sir, to gain time," cried Bella, putting 
out her right foot ; "do you see that, sir ? That's the mark ; come 
up to the mark, sir. Once ! Twice ! Three times and away. 
Pa ! " Off she skimmed, bearing the cherub along, nor ever 
stopped, nor suffered him to stop, until she had pulled at the bell. 
" Now, dear Pa," said Bella, taking him by both ears as if he were 
a pitcher, and conveying his face to her rosy lips, "we are in 
for it ! " 

Miss Lavvy came out to open the gate, waited on by that 
attentive cavalier and friend of the family, Mr. George Sampson. 
" Why, it's never Bella ! " exclaimed Miss Lavvy, starting back at 
the sight. And then bawled, " Ma ! Here's Bella ! " 



586 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

This produced, before they could get into the house, Mrs. Wilfer. 
Who, standing in the portal, received them with ghostly gloom, and 
all her other appliances of ceremony. 

"My child is welcome, though unlooked for," said she, at the 
time presenting her cheek as if it were a cool slate for visitors to 
enrol themselves upon. "You too, R. W., are welcome, though 
late. Does the male domestic of Mrs. Boffin hear me there ? " This 
deep-toned inquiry was cast forth into the night, for response from 
the menial in question. 

" There is no one waiting, Ma, dear," said Bella. 

" There is no one waiting 1 " repeated Mrs. Wilfer, in majestic 
accents. 

" No, Ma, dear." 

A dignified shiver pervaded Mrs. Wilfer's shoulders and gloves, 
as who should say, "An Enigma ! " and then she marched at the 
head of the procession to the family keeping-room, where she 
observed : 

" Unless, R. W. : " who started on being solemnly turned upon : 
" you have taken the precaution of making some addition to our 
frugal supper on your way home, it will prove but a distasteful one 
to Bella. Cold neck of mutton and a lettuce can ill compete with 
the luxuries of Mr. Boffin's board." 

" Pray don't talk like that. Ma, dear," said Bella ; " Mr. Boffin's 
board is nothing to me." 

But, here Miss Lavinia, who had been intently eyeing Bella's 
bonnet, struck in with " Why, Bella ! " 

"Yes, Lavvy, I know." 

The Irrepressible lowered her eyes to Bella's dress, and stooped 
to look at it, exclaiming again : " Why, Bella ! " 

"Yes, Lavvy, I know what I have got on. I was going to tell 
Ma when you interrupted. I have left Mr. Boffin's house for good. 
Ma, and I have come home again." 

Mrs. Wilfer spake no word, but, having glared at her ofi'spring 
for a minute or two in an awful silence, retired into her corner of 
state backward, and sat down : like a frozen article on sale in a 
Russian market. 

" In short, dear Ma," said Bella, taking off the depreciated 
bonnet and shaking out her hair, " I have had a very serious differ- 
ence with Mr. Boffin on the subject of his treatment of a member 
of his household, and it's a final difference, and there's an end of all." 

"And I am bound to tell you, my dear," added R. W., submis- 
sively, "that Bella has acted in a truly brave spirit, and with a 
truly right feeling. And therefore I hope, my dear, you'll not 
allow yourself to be greatly disappointed." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 587 

" George ! " said Miss Lawy, in a sepulchral, warning voice, 
founded on her mother's : " George Sampson, speak ! What did I 
tell you about those Boffins 1 " 

Mr. Sampson perceiving his frail bark to be labouring among shoals 
and breakers, thought it safest not to refer back to any particular 
thing that he had been told, lest he should refer back to the wrong 
thing. With admirable seamanship he got his bark into deep 
water by murmuring, "Yes indeed." 

"Yes ! I told George Sampson, as George Sampson tells you," 
said Miss Lawy, " that those hateful Boffins would pick a quarrel 
with Bella, as soon as her novelty had worn off. Have they done 
it, or have they not 1 Was I right, or was I wrong ? And what 
do you say to us, Bella, of your Boffins now ? " 

" Lavvy and Ma," said Bella, " I say of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin what 
I always have said ; and I always shall say of them what I always 
have said. But nothing will induce me to quarrel with any one 
to-night. I hope you are not sorry to see me. Ma, dear," kissing 
her; "and I hope you are not sorry to see me, Lavvy," kissing 
her too ; " and as I notice the lettuce Ma mentioned, on the table, 
I'll make the salad." 

Bella playfully setting herself about the task, Mrs. Wilfer's 
impressive countenance followed her with glaring eyes, presenting 
a combination of the once popular sign of the Saracen's Head, 
with a piece of Dutch clockwork, and suggesting to an imaginative 
mind that from the composition of the salad, her daughter might 
prudently omit the vinegar. But no word issued from the majes- 
tic matron's lips. And this was more terrific to her husband (as 
perhaps she knew) than any flow of eloquence with which she 
could have edified the company. 

"Now, Ma, dear," said Bella, in due course, " the salad's ready, 
and it's past supper-time." 

Mrs. Wilfer rose, but remained speechless. " George ! " said 
Miss Lavinia in her voice of warning, " Ma's chair ! " Mr. 
Sampson flew to the excellent lady's back, and followed her up 
close, chair in hand, as she stalkea to the banquet. Arrived at the 
table, she took her rigid seat, after favouring Mr. Sampson with a 
glare for himself, which caused the young gentleman to retire to 
his place in much confusion. 

The cherub not presuming to address so tremendous an object, 
transacted her supper through the agency of a third person, as 
"Mutton to your Ma, Bella, my dear;" and "Lavvy, I dare say 
your Ma would take some lettuce if you were to put it on her 
plate." Mrs. Wilfer's manner of receiving those viands was marked 
by petrified absence of mind ; in which state, likewise, she partook 



588 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

of them, occasionally laying down her knife and fork, as saying 
within her own spirit, " What is this I am doing ? " and glaring at 
one or other of the party, as if in indignant search of information. 
A magnetic result of such glaring was, that the person glared at 
could not by any means successfully pretend to be ignorant of the 
fact : so that a bystander, without beholding Mrs. Wilfer at all, 
must have known at whom she was glaring, by seeing her refracted 
from the countenance of the beglared one. 

Miss Lavinia was extremely affable to Mr. Sampson on this special 
occasion, and took the opportunity of informing her sister why. 

" It was not worth troubling you about, Bella, when you were in 
a sphere so far removed from your family as to make it a matter in 
which you could be expected to take very little interest," said 
Lavinia with a toss of her chin ; "but George Sampson is paying 
his addresses to me." 

Bella was glad to hear it. Mr. Sampson became thoughtfully 
red, and felt called upon to encircle Miss Lavinia's waist with his 
arm ; but encountering a large pin in the young lady's belt, scari- 
fied a finger, uttered a sharp exclamation, and attracted the light- 
ning of Mrs. Wilfer's glare. 

"George is getting on very well," said Miss Lavinia — which 
might not have been supposed at the moment — "and I dare say 
we shall be married one of these days. I didn't care to mention 

it when you were with your Bof " here Miss Lavinia checked 

herself in a bounce, and added more placidly, " when you were 
with Mr. and Mrs. Boffin ; but now I think it sisterly to name the 
circumstance." 

" Thank you, Lawy dear. I congratulate you." 

"Thank you, Bella. The truth is, George and I did discuss 
whether I should tell you ; but I said to George that you wouldn't 
be much interested in so paltry an affair, and that it was far more 
likely you would rather detach yourself from us altogether, than 
have him added to the rest of us." 

" That was a mistake, dear Lavvy," said Bella. 

" It turns out to be," replied Miss Lavinia; "but circumstances 
have changed, you know, my dear. George is in a new situation, 
and his prospects are very good indeed. I should not have had the 
courage to tell you so yesterday, when you would have thought 
his prospects poor, and not worth notice; but I feel quite bold 
to-night." 

"When did you begin to feel timid, Lawy?" inquired Bella, 
with a smile. 

" I didn't say that I ever felt timid, Bella," replied the Irre- 
pressible. "But perhaps I might have said, if I had not been 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 589 

restrained by delicacy towards a sister's feelings, that I have for 
some time felt independent ; too independent, my dear, to subject 
myself to have my intended match (you'll prick yourself again, 
George) looked down upon. It is not that I could have blamed 
you for looking down upon it, when you were looking up to a rich 
and great match, Bella ; it is only that I was independent." 

Whether the Irrepressible felt slighted by Bella's declaration 
that she would not quarrel, or whether her spitefulness was evoked 
by Bella's return to the sphere of Mr. George Sampson's courtship, 
or whether it was a necessary fillip to her spirits that she should 
come into collision with somebody on the present occasion, — any- 
how she made a dash at her stately parent now, with the greatest 
impetuosity. 

"Ma, pray don't sit staring at me in that intensely aggravating 
manner ! If you see a black on my nose, tell me so ; if you don't, 
leave me alone." 

" Do you address Me in those words ? " said Mrs. Wilfer. " Do 
you presume 1 " 

" Don't talk about presuming. Ma, for goodness' sake. A girl 
who is old enough to be engaged, is quite old enough to object to 
be stared at as if she was a Clock." 

" Audacious one ! " said Mrs. Wilfer. " Your grandmamma, if 
so addressed by one of her daughters, at any age, would have 
insisted on her retiring to a dark apartment." 

" My grandmamma," returned Lavvy, folding her arms and lean- 
ing back in her chair, " wouldn't have sat staring people out of 
countenance, I think." 

" She would ! " said Mrs. Wilfer. 

" Then it's a pity she didn't know better," said Lawy. " And 
if my grandmamma wasn't in her dotage when she took to insist- 
ing on people's retiring to dark apartments she ought to have 
been. A pretty exhibition my grandmamma must have made of 
herself ! I wonder whether she ever insisted on people's retiring into 
the ball of St. Paul's ; and if she did, how she got them there ! " 

" Silence ! " proclaimed Mrs. Wilfer. " I command silence ! " 

" I have not the slightest intention of being silent. Ma," re- 
turned Lavinia, coolly, " but quite the contrary. I am not going 
to be eyed as if / had come from the Boffins, and sit silent under 
it. I am not going to have George Sampson eyed as if he had come 
from the Boffins, and sit silent under it. If Pa thinks proper to 
be eyed as if he had come from the Boffins also, well and good. 
I don't choose to. And I won't ! " 

Lavinia's engineering having made this crooked opening at Bella, 
Mrs. Wilfer strode into it. 



590 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"You rebellious spirit! You mutinous child! Tell me this, 
Lavinia. If, in violation of your mother's sentiments, you had 
condescended to allow yourself to be patronised by the Boffins, 
and if you had come from those halls of slavery " 

" That's mere nonsense. Ma," said Lavinia. 

" How ! " exclaimed Mrs. Wilfer, with sublime severity. 

"Halls of slavery, Ma, is mere stuff and nonsense," returned the 
unmoved Irrepressible. 

"I say, presumptuous child, if you had come from the neigh- 
bourhood of Portland Place, bending under the yoke of patronage, 
and attended by its domestics in glittering garb to visit me, do you 
think my deep-seated feelings could have been expressed in looks ? " 

"All I think about it is," returned Lavinia, "that I should wish 
them expressed to the right person." 

"And if," pursued her mother, "if, making light of my warn- 
ings that the face of Mrs. Boffin alone was a face teeming with 
evil, you had clung to Mrs. Boffin instead of to me, and had after all 
come home rejected by Mrs. Boffin, trampled under foot by Mrs. 
Boffin, and cast out by Mrs. Boffin, do you think my feelings could 
have been expressed in looks 1 " 

Lavinia was about replying to her honoured parent that she 
might as well have dispensed with her looks altogether then, when 
Bella rose and said, " Good night, dear Ma. I have had a tiring 
day, and I'll go to bed." This broke up the agreeable party. Mr. 
George Sampson shortly afterwards took his leave, accompanied 
by Miss Lavinia with a candle as far as the hall, and without a 
candle as far as the garden gate ; Mrs. Wilfer, washing her hands 
of the Boffins, went to bed after the manner of Lady Macbeth ; 
and R. W. was left alone among the dilapidations of the supper 
table, in a melancholy attitude. 

But, a light footstep roused him from his meditations, and it 
was Bella's. Her pretty hair was hanging all about her, and she 
had tripped down softly, brush in hand, and barefoot, to say good 
night to him. 

" My dear, you most unquestionably are a lovely woman," said 
the cherub, taking up a tress in his hand. 

" Look here, sir," said Bella ; " when your lovely woman mar- 
ries, you shall have that piece if you like, and she'll make you a 
chain of it. Would you prize that remembrance of the dear 
creature ? " 

" Yes, my precious." 

" Then you shall have it if you're good, sir. I am very, very 
sorry, dearest Pa, to have brought home all this trouble." 

" My pet," returned her father, in the simplest good faith, "don't 




THE LOVELY WOMAN HAS HER FORTUNE TOLD. 



592 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

make yourself uneasy about that. It really is not worth mention- 
ing, because things at home would have taken i)retty much the 
same turn any way. If your mother and sister don't find one 
subject to get at times a little wearing on, they find another. 
We're never out of a wearing subject, my dear, I assure you. I 
am afraid you find your old room with Lavvy, dreadfully incon- 
venient, Bella?" 

" No, I don't. Pa ; I don't mind. Why don't I mind, do you 
think. Pa?" 

"Well, my child, you used to complain of it when it wasn't 
such a contrast as it must be now. Upon my word, I can only 
answer, because you are so much improved." 

" No, Pa. Because I am so thankful and so happy ! " 

Here she choked him until her long hair made him sneeze, and 
then she laughed until she made him laugh, and then she choked 
him again that they might not be overheard. 

"Listen, sir," said Bella. "Your lovely woman was told her 
fortune to-night on her way home. It won't be a large fortune, 
because if the lovely woman's Intended gets a certain appointment 
that he hopes to get soon, she will marry on a hundred and fifty 
pounds a year. But that's at first, and even if it should never be 
more, the lovely woman will make it quite enough. But that's 
not all, sir. In the fortune there's a certain fair man — a little 
man, the fortune-teller said — who, it seems, will always find him- 
self near the lovely woman, and will always have kept, expressly 
for him, such a peaceful corner in the lovely woman's little house 
as neVer was. Tell me the name of that man, sir." 

" Is he a Knave in the pack of cards ? " inquired the cherub, 
with a twinkle in his eyes. 

"Yes!" cried Bella, in high glee, choking him again. "He's 
the Knave of Wilfers ! Dear Pa, the lovely woman means to look 
forward to this fortune that has been told for her, so delightfully, 
and to cause it to make her a much better lovely woman than she 
ever has been yet. What the little fair man is expected to do, 
sir, is to look forward to it also, by saying to himself when he is 
in danger of being over-worried, ' I see land at last ! ' " 

"I see land at last ! " repeated her father. 

" There's a dear Knave of Wilfers ! " exclaimed Bella ; then put- 
ting out her small white bare foot, " That's the mark, sir. Come 
to the mark. Put your boot against it. We keep to it together, 
mind ! Now, sir, you may kiss the lovely woman before she runs 
awJiy, so thankful and so happy. yes, fair little man, so thank- 
ful and so happy ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 593 

CHAPTER XVII. 

A SOCIAL CHORUS. 

Amazement sits enthroned upon the countenances of Mr. and 
Mrs. Alfred Lammle's ch'cle of acquaintance, when the disposal of 
their first-class furniture and effects (including a Billiard Table in 
capital letters), " by auction under a bill of sale," is publicly 
announced on a waving hearthrug in Sackville Street. But nobody 
is half so much amazed as Hamilton Veneering, Esquire, M.P. 
for Pocket Breaches, who instantly begins to find out that the 
Lammles are the only people ever entered on his soul's register 
who are not the oldest and dearest friends he has in the world, 
Mrs. Veneering, W.M.P. for Pocket Breaches, like a faithful wife, 
shares her husband's discovery and inexpressible astonishment. 
Perhaps the Veneerings twain may deem the last unutterable feel- 
ing particularly due to their reputation, by reason that once upon 
a time some of the longer heads in the City are whispered to have 
shaken themselves, when Veneering's extensive dealings and great 
wealth were mentioned. But it is certain that neither Mr. nor 
Mrs. Veneering can find words to wonder in, and it becomes neces- 
sary that they give to the oldest and dearest friends they have in 
the world, a wondering dinner. 

For it is by this time noticeable that, whatever befalls, the 
Veneerings must give a dinner upon it. Lady Tippins lives in a 
chronic state of invitation to dine with the Veneerings, and in a 
chronic state of inflammation arising from the dinners. Boots and 
Brewer go about in caps, with no other intelligible business on 
earth than to beat up people to come and dine with the Veneer- 
ings. Veneering pervades the legislative lobbies, intent upon en- 
trapi^ing his fellow-legislators to dinner. Mrs. Veneering dined 
with five-and-twenty bran-new faces over-night; calls upon them 
all to-day ; sends them every one a dinner-card to-morrow, for the 
week after next ; before that dinner is digested, calls upon their 
brothers and sisters, their sons and daughters, their nephews and 
nieces, their aunts and uncles and cousins, and invites them all to 
dinner. And still, as at first, howsoever the dining circle widens, 
it is to be observed that all the diners are consistent in appearing 
to go to the Veneerings, not to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Veneering 
(which would seem to be the last thing in their minds), but to 
dine with one another. 

Perhaps, after all, — who knows 1 — Veneering may find this 
dining, though expensive, remunerative in the sense that it makes 
champions. Mr. Podsnap, as a representative man, is not alone 

2q 



594 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

in caring very particularly for his own dignity, if not for that of 
his acquaintances, and therefore in angrily supporting the acquaint- 
ances who have taken out his Permit, lest, in their being lessened, 
he should be. The gold and silver camels, and the ice-pails, and 
the rest of the Veneering table decorations, make a brilliant show, 
and when I, Podsnap, casually remark elsewhere that I dined last 
Monday with a gorgeous caravan of camels, I find it personally 
offensive to have it hinted to me that they are broken-kneed 
camels, or camels labouring under suspicion of any sort. " I don't 
display camels myself, I am above them : I am a more solid man ; 
but these camels have basked in the light of my countenance, and 
how dare you, sir, insinuate to me that I have irradiated any but 
unimpeachable camels ? " 

The camels are polishing up in the Analytical's pantry for the 
dinner of wonderment on the occasion of the Lammles going to 
pieces, and Mr. Twemlow feels a little queer on the sofo at his 
lodgings over the stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James's, in 
consequence of having taken two advertised pills at about mid-day, 
on the faith of the printed representation accompanying the box 
(price one and a penny halfpenny, government stamp included), 
that the same " will be found highly salutary as a precautionary 
measure in connection with the pleasures of the table." To whom, 
while sickly with the fancy of an insoluble pill sticking in his gullet, 
and also witli the sensation of a deposit of warm gum languidly 
wandering within him a little lower down, a servant enters with an 
announcement that a lady wishes to speak with him. 

" A lady," says Twemlow, pluming his ruffled feathers. " Ask 
the ftxvour of the lady's name." 

The lady's name is Lammle. The lady will not detain Mr. 
Twemlow longer than a very few minutes. The lady is sure that 
Mr. Twemlow will do her the kindness to see her on being told 
that she particularly desires a short interview. The lady has no 
doubt whatever of Mr. Twemlow's compliance when he hears her 
name. Has begged the servant to be particular not to mistake 
her name. Would have sent in a card, but has none. 

" Show the lady in." Lady shown in, comes in. 

Mr. Twemlow's little rooms are modestly furnished, in an old- 
fashioned manner (rather like the housekeeper's room at Suigs- 
worthy Park), and would be bare of mere ornament, were it not 
for a full-length engraving of the sublime Snigsworth over the 
chimney-piece, snorting at a Corinthian column, with an enormous 
roll of paper at his feet, and a heavy curtain going to tumble down 
on his head ; those accessories being understood to represent the 
noble lord as somehow in the act of saving his country. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 595 

"Pray take a seat, Mrs. Lammle." Mrs. Lammle takes a seat 
and opens the conversation. 

" I have no doubt, Mr. Twemlow, that you have heard of a 
reverse of fortune having befallen us. Of course you have heard 
of it, for no kind of news travels so fast — among one's friends 
especially." 

Mindful of the wondering dinner, Twemlow, with a little twinge, 
admits the imputation. 

"Probably it will not," says Mrs. Lammle, with a certain hard- 
ened manner upon her, that makes Twemlow shrink, "have sur- 
prised you so much as some others, after what passed between us 
at the house which is now turned out at windows. I have taken 
the liberty of calling upon you, Mr. Twemlow, to add a sort of 
postscript to what I said that day." 

Mr. Twemlow's dry and hollow cheeks become more dry and 
hollow at the prospect of some new complication. 

" Really," says the uneasy little gentleman, " really, Mrs. Lammle, 
I should take it as a favour if you could excuse me from any 
further confidence. It has ever been one of the objects of my 
life — which, unfortunately, has not had many objects — to be 
inoffensive, and to keep out of cabals and interferences." 

Mrs. Lammle, by far the more observant of the two, scarcely 
finds it necessary to look at Twemlow while he speaks, so easily 
does she read him. 

" My postscript — to retain the term I have used " — says Mrs. 
Lammle, fixing her eyes on his face, to enforce what she says 
herself — " coincides exactly with what you say, Mr. Twemlow. 
So far from troubling you with any new confidence, I merely wish 
to remind you what the old one was. So far from asking you for 
interference, I merely wish to claim your strict neutrality." 

Twemlow going on to reply, she rests her eyes again, know- 
ing her ears to be quite enough for the contents of so weak a 
vessel. 

" I can, I suppose," says Twemlow, nervously, " offer no reason- 
able objection to hearing anything that you do me the honour to 
wish to say to me under those heads. But if I may, with all pos- 
sible delicacy and politeness, entreat you not to range beyond them, 
I — I beg to do so." 

" Sir," says Mrs. Lammle, raising her eyes to his face again, 
and quite daunting him with her hardened manner, " I imparted 
to you a certain piece of knowledge, to be imparted again, as you 
thought best, to a certain person." 

" Which I did," says Twemlow. 

"And for doing which, I thank you; though, indeed, I scarcely 



696 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

know why I turned traitress to my husband in the matter, for the 
girl is a poor little fool. I was a poor little fool once myself; I 
can find no better reason." Seeing the effect she produces on him 
by her indifterent laugh and cold look, she keeps her eyes upon 
him as she proceeds. "Mr. Twemlow, if you should chance to see 
my husband, or to see me, or to see both of us, in the favour or 
confidence of any one else — whether of our common acquaintance 
or not, is of no consequence — you have no right to use against us 
the knowledge I intrusted you with, for one special purpose which 
has been accomplished. This is what I came to say. It is not a 
stipulation ; to a gentleman it is simply a reminder." 

Twemlow sits murmuring to himself with his hand to his 
forehead. 

" It is so plain a case," Mrs. Lammle goes on, " as between me 
(from the first relying on your honour) and you, that I will not 
waste another word upon it." She looks steadily at Mr. Twem- 
low, until, with a shrug, he makes her a little one-sided bow, as 
though saying, "Yes, I think you have a right to rely upon me," 
and then she moistens her lips, and shows a sense of relief 

" I trust I have kept the promise I made through your servant, 
that I would detain you a very few minutes. I need trouble you 
no longer, Mr. Twemlow." 

" Stay ! " says Twemlow, rising as she rises. " Pardon me a 
moment. I should never have sought you out, madam, to say 
what I am going to say, but since you have sought me out and 
are here, I will throw it off my mind. Was it quite consistent, in 
candour, with our taking that resolution against Mr. Fledgeby, 
that you should afterwards address Mr. Fledgeby as your dear and 
confidential friend, and entreat a favour of Mr. Fledgeby 1 Always 
supposing that you did ; I assert no knowledge of my own on the 
subject ; it has been represented to me that you did." 

" Then he told you ? " retorts Mrs. Lammle, who again has saved 
her eyes while listening, and uses them with strong effect while 
speaking. 

" Yes." 

"It is strange that he should have told you the truth," says Mrs. 
Lammle, seriously pondering. " Pray where did a circumstance so 
very extraordinary happen ? " 

Twemlow hesitates. He is shorter than the lady as well as 
weaker, and as she stands above him with her hardened manner, 
and her well-used eyes, he finds himself at such a disadvantage that 
he would like to be of the opposite sex. 

"May I ask where it happened, Mr. Twemlow? In strict 
confidence ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 597 

"I must confess," says the mild little gentleman, coming to his 
answer by degrees, "that I felt some compunctions when Mr. 
Fledgeby mentioned it, I must admit that I could not regard 
myself in an agreeable light. More particularly, as Mr. Fledgeby 
did, with great civility, which I could not feel that I deserved from 
him, render me the same service that you had entreated him to 
render you." 

It is a part of the true nobility of the poor gentleman's soul to 
say this last sentence. "Otherwise," he has reflected, "I shall 
assume the superior position of having no difficulties of my own, 
while I know of hers. Which would be mean, very mean." 

" Was Mr. Fledgeby 's advocacy as effectual in your case as in 
ours?" Mrs. Lammle demands. 

"As meffectual." 

" Can you make up your mind to tell me where you saw Mr. 
Fledgeby, Mr. Twemlow?" 

" I beg your pardon. I fully intended to have done so. The 
reservation was not intentional. I encountered Mr. Fledgeby, quite 
by accident, on the spot. — By the expression, on the spot, I mean 
at Mr. Riah's in Saint Mary Axe." 

" Have you the misfortune to be in Mr. Riah's hands then 1 " 

"Unfortunately, madam," returns Twemlow, "the one money- 
obligation to which I stand committed, the one debt of my life 
(but it is a just debt ; pray observe that I don't dispute it), has 
fallen into Mr. Riah's hands." 

" Mr. Twemlow," says Mrs. Lammle, fixing his eyes with hers : 
which he would prevent her doing if he could, but he can't; "it 
has fallen into Mr. Fledgeby's hands. Mr. Riah is his mask. It 
has fallen into Mr. Fledgeby's hands. Let me tell you that, for 
your guidance. The information may be of use to you, if only to 
prevent your credulity, in judging another man's truthfulness by 
your own, from being imposed upon." 

" Impossible ! " cries Twemlow, standing aghast. " How do you 
know it?" 

" I scarcely know how I know it. The whole train of circum- 
stances seemed to take fire at once, and show it to me." 

" Oh ! Then you have no proof." 

"It is very strange," says Mrs. Lammle, coldly and boldly, and 
with some disdain, "how like men are to one another in some 
things, though their characters are as different as can be ! No two 
men can have less affinity between them, one would say, than Mr. 
Twemlow and my husband. Yet my husband replies to me ' You 
have no proof,' and Mr. Twemlow replies to me with the very same 
words ! " 



698 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" But why, madam ? " Twemlow ventures gently to argue. 
"Consider why the very same words? Because they state the 
fact. Because you have no proof." 

"Men are very wise in their way," quoth Mrs. Lammle, glanc- 
ing haughtily at the Snigsworth portrait, and shaking out her dress 
before departing ; " but they have wisdom to learn. My husband, 
who is not over-confiding, ingenuous, or inexperienced, sees this 
plain thing no more than Mr. Twemlow does — because there is no 
proof. Yet I believe five women out of six, in my place, would see 
it as clearly as I do.' However, I will never rest (if only in remem- 
brance of Mr. Fledgeby's having kissed my hand) until my husband 
does see it. And you will do well for yourself to see it from this 
time forth, Mr. Twemlow, though I can give you no proof" 

As she moves towards the door, Mr. Twemlow, attending on her, 
expresses his soothing hope that the condition of Mr. Lammle's 
aflPairs is not irretrievable. 

"I don't know," Mrs. Lammle answers, stopping, and sketching 
out the pattern of the paper on the wall with the point of her 
parasol ; " it depends. There may be an opening for him dawning 
now, or there may be none. We shall soon find out. If none, we 
are bankrupt here, and must go abroad, I suppose." 

Mr. Twemlow, in his good-natured desire to make the best of it, 
remarks that there are pleasant lives abroad. 

"Yes," returns Mrs. Lammle, still sketching on the wall; "but 
I doubt whether billiard-playing, card-playing, and so forth, for the 
means to live under suspicion at a dirty table-d'hote, is one of 
them." 

It is much for Mr. Lammle, Twemlow politely intimates (though 
greatly shocked), to have one always beside him who is attached to 
him in all his fortunes, and whose restraining influence will pre- 
vent him from courses that would be discreditable and ruinous. 
As he says it, Mrs. Lammle leaves off sketching, and looks at him. 

" Restraining influence, Mr. Twemlow ? We must eat and drink, 
and dress, and have a roof over our heads. Always beside him and 
attached in all his fortunes ? Not much to boast of in that ; what 
can a woman at my age do? My husband and I deceived one 
another when we married ; we must bear the consequences of the 
deception — that is to say, bear one another, and bear the burden 
of scheming together for to-day's dinner and to-morrow's breakfast 
— till death divorces us." 

With those words, she walks out into Duke Street, Saint James's. 
Mr. Twemlow returning to his sofa, lays down his aching head on 
its slippery little horsehair bolster, with a strong internal conviction 
that a painful interview is not the kind of thing to be taken after 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 599 

the dinner pills which are so highly salutary in connection with the 
pleasures of the table. 

But, six o'clock in the evening finds the worthy little gentleman 
getting better, and also getting himself into his obsolete little silk 
stockings and pumps, for the wondering dinner at the Veneerings. 
And seven o'clock in the evening finds him trotting out into Duke 
Street to trot to the corner and save a sixpence in coach-hire. 

Tippins the divine has dined herself into such a condition by 
this time, that a morbid mind might desire her, for a blessed 
change, to sup at last, and turn into bed. Such a mind has Mr. 
Eugene Wrayburn, whom Twemlow finds contemplating Tippins 
with the moodiest of visages, while that playful creature rallies him 
on being so long overdue at the woolsack. Skittish is Tippins with 
Mortimer Lightwood too, and has raps to give him with her fan 
for having been best man at the nuptials of these deceiving what's- 
their-names who have gone to pieces. Though, indeed, the fan is 
generally lively, and taps away at the men in all directions, with 
something of a grisly sound suggestive of the clattering of Lady 
Tippins's bones. 

A new race of intimate friends has sprung up at Veneering's since 
he went into Parliament for the public good, to whom Mrs. Veneer- 
ing is very attentive. These friends, like astronomical distances, 
are only to be spoken of in the very largest figures. Boots says 
that one of them is a Contractor who (it has been calculated) gives 
employment, directly and indirectly, to five hundred thousand men. 
Brewer says that another of them is a Chairman, in such request 
at so many Boards, so far apart, that he never travels less by rail- 
way than three thousand miles a week. Buffer says that another 
of them hadn't a sixpence eighteen months ago, and, through the 
brilliancy of his genius in getting those shares issued at eighty-five, 
and buying them all up with no money and selling them at par for 
cash, has now three hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds — 
Buffer particularly insisting on the odd seventy-five, and declining 
to take a farthing less. With Buffer, Boots, and Brewer, Lady 
Tippins is eminently facetious on the subject of these Fathers of 
the Scrip-Church : surveying them through her eyeglass, and 
inquiring whether Boots and Brewer and Buffer think they will 
make her fortune if she makes love to them ? with other pleasan- 
tries of that nature. Veneering, in his different way, is much oc- 
cupied with the Fathers too, piously retiring with them into the 
conservatory, from which retreat the word " Committee " is occa- 
sionally heard, and where the Fathers instruct Veneering how he 
must leave the valley of the piano on his left, take the level of 
the mantelpiece, cross by an open cutting at the candelabra, seize 



600 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

the carrying traffic at the console, and cut up the opposition root 
and branch at the window curtains. 

Mr. and Mrs. Podsnap are of the company, and the Fathers 
descry in Mrs. Podsnap a fine woman. She is consigned to a 
Father — Boots's Father, who employs five hundred thousand men 
— and is brought to anchor on Veneering's left; thus aff'ording 
opportunity to the sportive Tippins on his right (he, as usual, 
being mere vacant space), to entreat to be told something about 
those loves of Navvies, and whether they do really live on raw 
beefsteaks, and drink porter out of their barrows. But, in spite 
of such little skirmishes it is felt that this was to be a wondering 
dinner, and that the wondering must not be neglected. Accord- 
ingly, Brewer, as the man who has the greatest reputation to sus- 
tain, becomes the interpreter of the general instinct. 

" I took," says Brewer in a favourable pause, " a cab this morn- 
ing, and I rattled off to that Sale." 

Boots (devoured by envy) says, " So did I." 

Bufi'er says, " So did I ; " but can find nobody to care whether 
he did or not. 

" And what was it like ? " inquires Veneering. 

"I assure you," replies Brewer, looking about for anybody else 
to address his answer to, and giving the preference to Lightwood ; 
" I assure you, the things were going for a song. Handsome things 
enough, but fetching nothing." 

" So I heard this afternoon," says Lightwood. 

Brewer begs to know now, " Would it be fair to ask a professional 
man how — on — earth — these — people — ever — did — come — 
to — such — a — total smash % " (Brewer's divisions being for em- 
phasis.) 

Lightwood replies that he was consulted certainly, but could give 
no opinion which would pay off" the Bill of Sale, and therefore vio- 
lates no confidence in supposing that it came of their living beyond 
their means. 

" But how," says Veneering, " can people do that ! " 

Hah ! That is felt on all hands to be a shot in the bull's eye. 
How CAN people do that ! The Analytical Chemist going round 
with champagne, looks very much as if he could give them a pretty 
good idea how people did that, if he had a mind. 

" How," says Mrs. Veneering, laying down her fork to press her 
aquiline hands together at the tips of the fingers, and addressing 
the Father who travels the three thousand miles per week : " how 
a mother can look at her baby, and know that she lives beyond her 
husband's means, I cannot imagine." 

Eugene suggests that Mrs. Lammle, not being a mother, had no 
baby to look at. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 601 

" True," says Mrs. Veneering, " but the principle is the same." 

Boots is clear that the principle is the same. So is Buffer. It 
is the unfortunate destiny of Buffer to damage a cause by espous- 
ing it. The rest of the company have meekly yielded to the prop- 
osition that the principle is the same, until Buffer says it is ; when 
instantly a general murmur arises that the principle is not the same. 

"But I don't understand," says the Father of the three hundred 
and seventy-five thousand pounds, " — if these people spoken of, 
occupied the position of being in society — they were in society?" 

Veneering is bound to confess that they dined here, and were 
even married from here. 

"Then I don't understand," pursues the Father, "how even 
their living beyond their means could bring them to what has been 
termed a total smash. Because there is always such a thing as an 
adjustment of affairs, in the case of people of any standing at all." 

Eugene (who would seem to be in a gloomy state of suggestive- 
ness) suggests, "Suppose you have no means and live beyond them?" 

This is too insolvent a state of things for the Father to enter- 
tain. It is too insolvent a state of things for any one with any 
self-respect to entertain, and is universally scouted. But it is so 
amazing how any people can have come to a total smash, that 
everybody feels bound to account for it specially. One of the 
Fathers says, "Gaming table." Another of the Fathers says, 
"Speculated without knowing that speculation is a science." 
Boots says, " Horses." Lady Tippins says to her fan, " Two 
establishments." Mr. Podsnap saying nothing, is referred to for 
his opinion ; which he delivers as follows ; much flushed and ex- 
tremely angry : 

" Don't ask me. I desire to take no part in the discussion of 
these people's affairs. I abhor the subject. It is an odious sub- 
ject, an offensive subject, a subject that makes me sick, and I 

" And with his favourite right-arm flourish which sweeps 

away everything and settles it for ever, Mr. Podsnap sweeps these 
inconveniently unexplainable wretches who have lived beyond their 
means and gone to total smash off the face of the universe. 

Eugene, leaning back in his chair, is observing Mr. Podsnap with 
an irreverent face, and may be about to offer a new suggestion, 
when the Analytical is beheld in collision with the Coachman ; the 
Coachman manifesting a purpose of coming at the company with 
a silver salver, as though intent upon making a collection for his 
wife and family ; the Analytical cutting him off at the sideboard. 
The superior stateliness, if not the superior generalship, of the 
Analytical, prevails over a man who is as nothing off the box; 
and the Coachman, yielding up his salver, retires defeated. 



602 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Then, the Analytical, perusing a scrap of paper lying on a salver, 
with the air of a literary Censor, adjusts it, takes his time about 
going to the table with it, and presents it to Mr. Eugene Wray- 
burn. Whereupon the pleasant Tippins says aloud, "The Lord 
Chancellor has resigned ! " 

With distracting coolness and slowness — for he knows the curi- 
osity of the Charmer to be always devouring — Eugene makes a 
pretence of getting out an eyeglass, polishing it, and reading the 
paper with difficulty, long after he has seen what is written on it. 
What is written on it in wet ink, is : 

"Young Blight." 

"Waiting?" says Eugene over his shoulder, in confidence, with 
the Analytical. 

" Waiting," returns the Analytical, in responsive confidence. 

Eugene looks "Excuse me," towards Mrs. Veneering, goes out, 
and finds Young Blight, Mortimer's clerk, at the hall-door. 

"You told me to bring him, sir, to wherever you was, if he 
come while you was out and I was in," says that discreet young 
gentleman, standing on tiptoe to whisper; "and I've brought 
him." 

"Sharp boy. Where is he?" asks Eugene. 

" He's in a cab, sir, at the door. I thought it best not to show 
him, you see, if it could be helped ; for he's a shaking all over, 
like — " Blight's simile is perhaps inspired by the surrounding 
dishes of sweets — "like Glue Monge." 

" Sharp boy again," returns Eugene. " I'll go to him." 

Goes out straightway, and, leisurely leaning his arms on the 
open window of a cab in waiting, looks in at Mr. Dolls : who 
has brought his own atmosphere with him, and would seem from 
its odour to have brought it, for convenience of carriage, in a rum- 
cask. 

" Now, Dolls, wake up ! " 

" Mist Wrayburn ? Drection ! Fifteen shillings ! " 

After carefully reading the dingy scrap of paper handed to him^ 
and as carefully tucking it into his waistcoat pocket, Eugene tells 
out the money ; beginning incautiously by telling the first shilling 
into Mr. Dolls's hand, which instantly jerks it out of window; 
and ending by telling the fifteen shillings on the seat. 

" Give him a ride back to Charing Cross, sharp boy, and there 
get rid of him." 

Returning to the dining-room, and pausing for an instant behind 
the screen at the door, Eugene overhears, above the hum and clatter, 
the fair Tippins saying : "I am dying to ask him what he was 
called out for ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 603 

"Are you?" mutters Eugene; "then perhaps if you can't ask 
him, you'll die. So I'll be a benefactor to society, and go. A 
stroll and a cigar, and I can think this over. Think this over." 
Thus, with a thoughtful ftice, he finds his hat and cloak, unseen of 
the Analytical, and goes his way. 



END OF BOOK IIIo 



BOOK THE FOURTH.-^ TUBNlNa. 

m 

CHAPTER I. 

SETTING TRAPS. 

Plashwater Weir-Mill Lock looked tranquil and pretty on an 
evening in the summer time. A soft air stirred the leaves of the 
fresh green trees, and passed like a smooth shadow over the river, 
and like a smoother shadow over the yielding grass. The voice of 
the falling water, like the voices of the sea and the wind, was an 
outer memory to a contemplative listener ; but not particularly so 
to Mr. Riderhood, who sat on one of the blunt wooden levers of 
his lock-gates, dozing. Wine must be got into a butt by some 
agency before it can be drawn out : and the wine of sentiment never 
having been got into Mr. Riderhood by any agency, nothing in 
nature tapped him. 

As the Rogue sat, ever and again nodding himself off his balance, 
his recovery was always attended by an angry stare and growl, as 
if, in the absence of any one else, he had aggressive inclinations 
towards himself. In one of these starts the cry of " Lock, ho ! 
Lock ! " prevented his relapse into a doze. Shaking himself as he 
got up, like the surly brute he was, he gave his growl a responsive 
twist at the end, and turned his face down-stream to see who hailed. 

It was an amateur sculler, well up to his work though taking it 
easily, in so light a boat that the Rogue remarked : "A little less 
on you, and you'd a'most ha' been a Wagerbut ; " then went to 
work at his windlass handles and sluices, to let the sculler in. As 
the latter stood in his boat, holding on by the boat-hook to the 
woodwork at the lock-side, waiting for the gates to open. Rogue 
Riderhood recognised his " T'other governor,"Mr. Eugene Wrayburn ; 
who was, however, too indifferent or too much engaged to recognise 
him. 

The creaking lock-gates opened slowly, and the light boat passed 
in as soon as there was room enough, and the creaking lock-gates 

604 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 605 

closed upon it, and it floated low down in the dock between the 
two sets of gates, until the water should rise and the second gates 
should open and let it out. When Riderhood had run to his second 
windlass and turned it, and while he leaned against the lever of 
that gate to help it to swing open presently, he noticed, lying to 
rest under the green hedge by the towing-path astern of the Lock, 
a Bargeman. 

The water rose and rose as the sluice poured in, dispersing the 
scum which had formed behind the lumbering gates, and sending 
the boat up, so that the sculler gradually rose like an apparition 
against the light from the bargeman's point of view. Riderhood 
observed that the bargeman rose too, leaning on his arm, and seemed 
to have his eyes fastened on the rising figure. 

But, there was the toll to be taken, as the gates were now 
complaining and opening. The T'other governor tossed it ashore, 
twisted in a piece of paper, and as he did so, knew his man. 

" Ay, ay ? It's you, is it, honest friend ? " said Eugene, seating him- 
self preparatory to resuming his sculls. " You got the place then ? " 

" I got the place, and no thanks to you for it, nor yet none to 
Lawyer Lightwood," gruffly answered Riderhood. 

"We saved our recommendation, honest fellow," said Eugene, 
"for the next candidate — the one who will offer himself when 
you are transported or hanged. Don't be long about it ; will you 
be so good ? " 

So imperturbable was the air with which he gravely bent to 
his work that Riderhood remained staring at him, without having 
found a retort, until he had rowed past a line of wooden objects 
by the weir, which showed like huge teetotums standing at rest in 
the water, and was almost hidden by the drooping boughs on the 
left bank, as he rowed away, keeping out of the opposing current. 
It being then too late to retort with any eff'ect — if that could ever 
have been done — the honest man confined himself to cursing and 
growling in a grim undertone. Having then got his gates shut, 
he crossed back by his plank Lock-bridge to the towing-path side 
of the river. 

If, in so doing, he took another glance at the bargeman, he did 
it by stealth. He cast himself on the grass by the Lock side, in 
an indolent way, with his back in that direction, and, having gath- 
ered a few blades, fell to chewing them. The dip of Eugene Wray- 
burn's sculls had become hardly audible in his ears when the barge- 
man passed him, putting the utmost width that he could between 
them, and keeping under the hedge. Then Riderhood sat up and 
took a long look at his figure, and then cried : " Hi — i — i ! Lock, 
ho ! Lock ! Plashwater Weir-Mill Lock ! " 



606 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

The bargeman stopped, and looked back. 

" Plash water Weir-Mill Lock, T'otherest gov — er — nor — or — or 
— or ! " cried Mr. Riderhood, with his hands to his mouth. 

The bargeman turned back. Approaching nearer and nearer, the 
bargeman became Bradley Headstone, in rough water-side second- 
hand clothing. 

" Wish I may die," said Riderhood, smiting his right leg, and 
laughing, as he sat on the grass, " if you ain't ha' been a imitating 
me, T'otherest governor! Never thought myself so good-looking 
afore ! " 

Truly, Bradley Headstone had taken careful note of the honest 
man's dress in the course of that night- walk they had had together. 
He must have committed it to memory, and slowly got it by heart. 
It was exactly reproduced in the dress he now wore. And whereas, 
in his own schoolmaster clothes, he usually looked as if they were 
the clothes of some other man, he now looked, in the clothes of 
some other man, or men, as if they were his own. 

" This your Lock 1 " said Bradley, whose surprise had a genuine 
air ; " they told me, where I last inquired, it was the third I should 
come to. This is only the second." 

"It's my belief, governor," returned Riderhood, with a wink and 
shake of his head, " that you've dropped one in your counting. It 
ain't Locks as you\<d been giving your mind to. No, no ! " 

As he expressively jerked his pointing finger in the direction the 
boat had taken, a flush of impatience mounted into Bradley's face, 
and he looked anxiously up the river. 

"It ain't Locks as you'YQ been a reckoning up," said Riderhood, 
when the schoolmaster's eyes came back again. " No, no ! " 

"What other calculations do you suppose I have been occupied 
with ? Mathematics 1 " 

" I never heerd it called that. It's a long word for it. Hows'- 
ever, p'raps you call it so," said Riderhood, stubbornly chewing his 



"It. What?" 

" I'll say them, instead of it, if you like," was the coolly growled 
reply. " It's safer talk too." 

"What do you mean that I should understand by them ?" 

"Spites, affronts, offences giv' and took, deadly aggrawations, 
such like," answered Riderhood. 

Do what Bradley Headstone would, he could not keep that 
former flush of impatience out of his face, or so master his eyes as 
to prevent their again looking anxiously up the river. 

" Ha ha ! Don't be afeerd, T'otherest," said Riderhood. " The 
T'other's got to make way agin the stream, and he takes it easy. 



Ii 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 607 

You can soon come up with him. But wot's the good of saying 
that to you ! You know how fur you could have outwalked him 
betwixt anywheres about where he lost the tide — say Richmond 
— and this, if you had had a mind to it." 

"Trou think I have been following him?" said Bradley. 

" I KNOW you have," said Riderhood. 

"Well! I have, I have," Bradley admitted. "But," with 
another anxious look up the river, "he may land." 

" Easy you ! He won't be lost if he does land," said Riderhood. 
" He must leave his boat behind him. He can't make a bundle 
or a parcel on it, and carry it ashore with him under his arm." 

"He was speaking to you just now," said Bradley, kneeling 
on one knee on the grass beside the Lock-keeper. "What did 
he say?" 

" Cheek," said Riderhood. 

"What?" 

"Cheek," repeated Riderhood, with an angry oath; "cheek is 
what he said. He can't say nothing but cheek. I'd ha' liked to 
plump down aboard of him, neck and crop, with a heavy jump, 
and sunk him." 

Bradley turned away his haggard face for a few moments, and 
then said, tearing up a tuft of grass : 

" Damn him ! " 

"Hooroar," cried Riderhood. "Does you credit. Hooroar ! 
I cry chorus to the T'otherest." 

"What turn," said Bradley, with an effort at self-repression that 
forced him to wipe his face, "did his insolence take to-day?" 

" It took the turn," answered Riderhood, with sullen ferocity, 
" of hoping as I was getting ready to be hanged." 

" Let him look to that," cried Bradley. " Let him look to that ! 
It will be bad for him when men he has injured, and at whom he 
has jeered, are thinking of getting hanged. Let hi?n get ready for 
his fate, when that comes about. There was more meaning in 
what he said than he knew of, or he wouldn't have had brains 
enough to say it. Let him look to it ; let him look to it ! When 
men he has wi'onged, and on whom he has bestowed his insolence, 
are getting ready to be hanged, there is a death-bell ringing. And 
not for them." 

Riderhood, looking fixedly at him, gradually arose from his re- 
cumbent posture while the schoolmaster said these words with the 
utmost concentration of rage and hatred. So, when the words 
were all spoken, he too kneeled on one knee on the grass, and the 
two men looked at one another. 

" Oh ! " said Riderhood, very deliberately spitting out the grass 



608 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

he had been chewing. "Then I make out, T'otherest, as he is 
a going to her 1 " 

" He left London," answered Bradley, " yesterday. I have hardly 
a doubt, this time, that at last he is going to her." 

" You ain't sure, then ? " •■ 

"I am as sure here," said Bradley, with a clutch at the breast I' 
of his coarse shirt, "as if it was written there ; " with a blow or a 
stab at the sky. 

" Ah ! But judging from the looks on you," retorted Riderhood, 
completely ridding himself of his grass, and drawing his sleeve 
across his mouth, "you've made ekally sure afore, and have got 
disapinted. It has told upon you." 

" Listen," said Bradley, in a low voice, bending forward to lay 
his hand upon the Lock-keeper's shoulder. " These are my holidays. " 

" Are they, by George ! " muttered Riderhood, with his eyes on 
the passion-wasted face. " Your working-days must be stiff 'uns, 
if these is your holidays." 

" And I have never left him," pursued Bradley, waving the in- 
terruption aside with an impatient hand, " since they began. And 
I never will leave him now, till I have seen him with her." 

"And when you have seen him with her?" said Riderhood. 

" — I'll come back to you." 

Riderhood stiffened the knee on which he had been resting, got 
up, and looked gloomily at his new friend. After a few moments 
they walked side by side in the direction the boat had taken, as if 
by tacit consent ; Bradley pressing forward, and Riderhood holding 
back ; Bradley getting out his neat prim purse into his hand (a 
present made him by penny subscription among his pupils), and 
Riderhood unfolding his arms to smear his coat-cuff across his 
mouth with a thoughtful air. 

" I have a pound for you," said Bradley. 

" You've two," said Riderhood. 

Bradley held a sovereign between his fingers. Slouching at his 
side with his eyes upon the towing-path, Riderhood held his left 
hand open, with a certain slight drawing action towards himself. 
Bradley dipped in his purse for another sovereign, and two chinked 
in Riderhood's hand, the drawing action of which, promptly 
strengthening, drew them home to his pocket. 

"Now, I must follow him," said Bradley Headstone. "He 
takes this river-road — the fool ! — to confuse observation, or divert 
attention, if not solely to baffle me. But he must have the power 
of making himself invisible before he can shake Me off." 

Riderhood stopped. " If you don't get disapinted agin, T'other- 
est, maybe you'll put up at the Lock-house when you come back ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 609 

"I will." 

Riderhood nodded, and the figure of the bargeman went its way 
along the soft turf by the side of the towing-path, keeping near 
the hedge and moving quickly. They had turned a point from 
which a long stretch of river was visible. A stranger to the scene 
might have been certain that here and there along the line of 
hedge a figure stood, watching the bargeman, and waiting for him 
to come up. So he himself had often believed at first, until his 
eyes became used to the posts, bearing the dagger that slew Wat 
Tyler, in the City of London shield. 

Within Mr. Riderhood's knowledge all daggers were as one. 
Even to Bradley Headstone, who could have told to the letter 
without book all about Wat Tyler, Lord Mayor Walworth, and 
the King, that it is dutiful for youth to know, there was but one 
subject living in the world for every sharp destructive instrument 
that summer evening. So, Riderhood looking after him as he 
went, and he with his furtive hand laid upon the dagger as he 
passed it, and his eyes upon the boat, were much upon a par. 

The boat went on, under the arching trees, and over their tran- 
quil shadows in the water. The bargeman skulking on the oppo- 
site bank of the stream, went on after it. Sparkles of light showed 
Riderhood when and where the rower dipped his blades, until, 
even as he stood idly watching, the sun went down and the land- 
scape was dyed red. And then the red had the appearance of 
fading out of it and mounting up to Heaven, as we say that blood, 
guiltily shed, does. 

Turning back towards his Lock (he had not gone out of view of 
it), the Rogue pondered as deeply as it was within the contracted 
power of such a fellow to do. " Why did he copy my clothes ? 
He could have looked like what he wanted to look like, without 
that." This was the subject-matter in his thoughts ; in which, 
too, there came lumbering up, by times, like any half-floating and 
half-sinking rubbish in the river, the question, Was it done by 
accident ? The setting of a trap for finding out whether it was 
accidentally done, soon superseded, as a practical piece of cunning, 
the abstruser inquiiy why otherwise it was done. And he devised 
a means. 

Rogue Riderhood went into his Lock-house, and brought forth, 
into the now sober grey light, his chest of clothes. Sitting on the 
grass beside it, he turned out, one by one, the articles it contained, 
until he came to a conspicuous bright red neckerchief stained black 
here and there by wear. It arrested his attention, and he sat 
pausing over it, until he took off the rusty colourless wisp that 
he wore round his throat, and substituted the red neckerchief, 

2ii 



610 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

leaving the long ends flowing. " Now," said the Rogue, "if arter 
he sees me in this neckhankecher, I see him in a sim'lar neckhan- 
kecher, it won't be accident ! " Elated by his device, he carried 
his chest in again and went to supper. 

" Lock ho ! Lock ! " It was a light night, and a barge coming 
down summoned him out of a long doze. In due course he had 
let the barge through and was alone again, looking to the closing 
of his gates, when Bradley Headstone appeared before him, stand- 
ing on the brink of the Lock. 

" Halloa ! " said Riderhood. " Back a'ready, T'otherest ? " 

" He has put up for the night, at an Angler's Inn," was the 
fatigued and hoarse reply. " He goes on, up the river, at six in 
the morning. I have come back for a couple of hours' rest." 

"You want 'em," said Riderhood, making towards the school- 
master by his plank bridge. 

"I don't want them," returned Bradley, irritably, "because I 
would rather not have them, but would much prefer to follow 
him all night. However, if he won't lead, I can't follow. I have 
been waiting about, until I could discover, for a certainty, at 
what time he starts ; if I couldn't have made sure of it, I should 
have stayed there. — This would be a bad pit for a man to be flung 
into with his hands tied. These slippery smooth walls would give 
him no chance. And I suppose those gates would suck him 
down ? " 

"Suck him down, or s waller him up, he wouldn't get out," 
said Riderhood. " Not even if his hands warn't tied, he wouldn't. 
Shut him in at both ends, and I'd give him a pint o' old ale 
ever to come up to me standing here." 

Bradley looked down with a ghastly relish. " You run about 
the brink, and run across it, in this uncertain light, on a few 
inches' width of rotten wood," said he. " I wonder you have no 
thought of being drowned." 

" I can't be ! " said Riderhood. 

" You can't be drowned? " 

" No ! " said Riderhood, shaking his head with an air of thorough 
conviction, " it's well known. I have been brought out o' drowning, 
and I can't be drowned. I wouldn't have that there busted B'low- 
bridger aware on it, or her people might make it tell agin the 
damages I mean to get. But it's well known to water-side charac- 
ters like myself, that him as has been brought out o' drowning, can 
never be drowned." 

Bradley smiled sourly at the ignorance he would have corrected 
in one of his pupils, and continued to look down into the water, 
as if the place had a gloomy fascination for him. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 611 

"You seem to like it," said Riderhood. 

He took no notice, but stood looking down, as if he had not heard 
the words. There was a very dark expression on his face ; an ex- 
pression that the Rogue found it hard to understand. It was fierce, 
and full of purpose ; but the purpose might have been as much 
against himself as against another. If he had stepped back for a 
spring, taken a leap, and thrown himself in, it would have been 
no surprising sequel to the look. Perhaps his troubled soul, set 
upon some violence, did hover for the moment between that violence 
and another. 

"Didn't you say," asked Riderhood, after watching him for a 
while with a sidelong glance, " as you had come back for a couple 
o' hours' rest 1 " But even then he had to jog him with his elbow 
before he answered. 

"Eh? Yes." 

"Hadn't you better come in and take your couple o' hours' 
rest?" 

" Thank you. Yes." 

With the look of one just awakened, he foUowed Riderhood into 
the Lock-house, where the latter produced from a cupboard some 
cold salt beef and half a loaf, some gin in a bottle, and some water 
in a jug. The last he brought in, cool and dripping, from the 
river. 

" There, T'otherest," said Riderhood, stooping over him to put it 
on the table. " You'd better take a bite and a sup, afore you takes 
your snooze." The dragging ends of the red neckerchief caught 
the schoolmaster's eyes. Riderhood saw him look at it. 

"Oh!" thought that worthy. "You're a taking notice, are 
you ? Come ! You shall have a good squint at it then." With 
which reflection he sat down on the other side of the table, threw 
open his vest, and made a pretence of retying the neckerchief 
with much deliberation. 

Bradley ate and drank. As he sat at his platter and mug, 
Riderhood saw him, again and again, steal a look at the neckerchief, 
as if he were correcting his slow observation and prompting his 
sluggish memory. "When you're ready for your snooze," said the 
honest creature, " chuck yourself on my bed in the corner, T'other- 
est. It'll be broad day afore three. I'll call you early." 

" I shall require no calling," answered Bradley. And soon after- 
wards, divesting himself only of his shoes and coat, laid himself 
down. 

Riderhood, leaning back in his wooden arm-chair with his arms 
folded on his breast, looked at him lying with his right hand 
clenched in his sleep and his teeth set, until a film came over his 



612 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

own sight, and he slept too. He]awoke to find that it was daylight, 
and that his visitor was already astir, and going out to the river- 
side to cool his head : — " Though I'm blest," muttered Riderhood at 
the Lock-house door, looking after him, " if I think there's water 
enough in all the Thames to do that for you ! " Within five min- 
utes he had taken his departure, and was passing on into the calm 
distance as he had passed yesterday. Riderhood knew when a fish 
leaped, by his starting and glancing round. 

" Lock ho ! Lock ! " at intervals all day, and " Lock ho ! 
Lock ! " thrice in the ensuing night, but no return of Bradley. 
The second day was sultry and oppressive. In the afternoon, a 
thunderstorm came up, and had but newly broken into a furious 
sweep of rain when he rushed in at the door, like the storm itself. 

" You've seen him with her ! " exclaimed Riderhood, starting up. 

" I have." 

" Where 1 " 

"At his journey's end. His boat's hauled up for three days. 
I heard him give the order. Then, I saw him wait for her and 
meet her. I saw them " — he stopped as though he were suffocat- 
ing, and began again — "I saw them walking side by side, last 
night." 

"What did you do?" 

"Nothing." 

" What are you going to do ? " 

He dropped into a chair, and laughed. Immediately afterwards, 
a great spirt of blood burst from his nose. 

" How does that happen ? " asked Riderhood. 

" I don't know. I can't keep it back. It has happened twice — 
three times — four times — I don't know how many times — since 
last night. I taste it, smell it, see it, it chokes me, and then it 
breaks out like this." 

He went into the pelting rain again with his head bare, and, 
bending low over the river, and scooping up the water with his two 
hands, washed the blood away. All beyond his figure, as Rider- 
hood looked from the door, was a vast dark curtain in solemn move- 
ment towards one quarter of the heavens. He raised his head and 
came back, wet from head to foot, but w^ith the lower part of his 
sleeves, where he had dipped into the river, streaming water. 

" Your face is like a ghost's," said Riderhood. 

" Did you ever see a ghost? " was the sullen retort. 

"I mean to say, you're quite wore out." 

" That may well be. I have had no rest since I left here. I 
don't remember that I have so much as sat down since I left here." 

"Lie down now, then," said Riderhood. 



I 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 613 

" I will if you'll give me something to quench my thirst first." 

The bottle and jug were again produced, and he mixed a weak 
draught, and another, and drank both in quick succession. " You 
asked me something," he said then. 

"No, I didn't," replied Riderhood. 

"I tell you," retorted Bradley, turning upon him in a wild and 
desperate manner, "you asked me something, before I went out to 
wash my face in the river." 

" Oh ! Then ? " said Riderhood, backing a little. " I asked you 
wot you wos a going to do." 

"How can a man in this state know?" he answered, protesting 
with both his tremulous hands, with an action so vigorously angry 
that he shook the water from his sleeves upon the floor, as if he 
had wrung them. " How can I plan anything if I haven't sleep 1 " 

"Why, that's what I as good as said," returned the other. 
" Didn't I say lie down 1 " 

"Well, perhaps you did." 

" Well ! Anyways I says it again. Sleep where you slept last ; 
the sounder and longer you can sleep, the better you'll know arter- 
wards what you're up to." 

His pointing to the truckle bed in the corner seemed gradually 
to bring that poor couch to Bradley's wandering remembrance. He 
slipped off his worn down-trodden shoes, and cast himself heavily, 
all wet as he was, upon the bed. 

Riderhood sat down in his wooden arm-chair, and looked through 
the window at the lightning, and listened to the thunder. But his 
thoughts were far from being absorbed by the thunder and the 
lightning, for again and again and again he looked very curiously 
at the exhausted man upon the bed. The man had turned up the 
collar of the rough coat he wore, to shelter himself from the storm, 
and had buttoned it about his neck. Unconscious of that, and of 
most things, he had left the coat so, both when he had laved his 
face in the river, and when he had cast himself upon the bed ; 
though it would have been much easier to him if he had loosened it. 

The thunder rolled heavily, and the forked lightning seemed to 
make jagged rents in every part of the vast curtain without, as 
Riderhood sat by the window, glancing at the bed. Sometimes he 
saw the man upon the bed, by a red light ; sometimes by a blue ; 
sometimes he scarcely saw him in the darkness of the storm ; some- 
times he saw nothing of him in the blinding glare of palpitating 
white fire. Anon, the rain would come again with a tremendous 
rush, and the river would seem to rise to meet it, and a blast of 
wind, bursting upon the door, would flutter the hair and dress of 
the man, as if invisible messengers were come around the bed to 




IN THE LOCK-KEEPEK's HOUSE. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 615 

carry him away. From all these phases of the storm, Riderhood 
would turn, as if they were interruptions — rather striking inter- 
ruptions possibly, but interruptions still — of his scrutiny of the 
sleeper. 

"He sleeps sound," he said within himself; "yet he's that up 
to me and that noticing of me that my getting out of my chair may 
awake him, when a rattling peal won't ; let alone my touching of 
him." 

He very cautiously rose to his feet. "T'otherest," he said, in a 
low, calm voice, "are you a lying easy? There's a chill in the air, 
governor. Shall I put a coat over you ? " 

No answer. 

"That's about what it is a'ready, you see," muttered Riderhood 
in a lower and a different voice ; "a coat over you, a coat over you ! " 

The sleeper moving an arm, he sat down again in his chair, and 
feigned to watch the storm from the window. It was a grand 
spectacle, but not so grand as to keep his eyes, for half a minute 
together, from stealing a look at the man upon the bed. 

It was at the concealed throat of the sleeper that Riderhood so 
often looked so curiously, until the sleep seemed to deepen into the 
stupor of the dead-tired in mind and body. Then, Riderhood came 
from the window cautiously, and stood by the bed. 

" Poor man ! " he murmured in a low tone, with a crafty face, 
and a very watchful eye and ready foot, lest he should start up ; 
" this here coat of his must make him uneasy in his sleep. Shall 
I loosen it for him, and make him more comfortable? Ah ! I think 
I ought to do it, poor man. I think I will." 

He touched the first button with a very cautious hand, and a step 
backward. But the sleeper remaining in profound unconsciousness, 
he touched the other buttons with a more assured hand, and perhaps 
the more lightly on that account. Softly and slowly, he opened 
the coat and drew it back. 

The draggling ends of a bright-red neckerchief were then dis- 
closed, and he had even been at the pains of dipping parts of it in 
some liquid, to give it the appearance of having become stained by 
wear. With a much-perplexed face, Riderhood looked from it to the 
sleeper, and from the sleeper to it, and finally crept back to his 
chair, and there, with his hand to his chin, sat long in a brown 
study, looking at both. 



616 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE. 

Mr. and Mrs. Lammle had come to breakfast with Mr. and 
Mrs. Boffin. They were not absohitely uninvited, but had pressed 
themselves with so much urgency on the golden couple, that evasion 
of the honour and pleasure of their company would have been diffi- 
cult, if desired. They were in a charming state of mind, were Mr. 
and Mrs. Lammle, and almost as fond of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin as of 
one another. 

"My dear Mrs. Boffin," said Mrs. Lammle, "it imparts new life 
to me, to see my Alfred in confidential communication with Mr. Bof- 
fin. The two were formed to become intimate. So much simplicity 
combined with so much force of character, such natural sagacity 
united to such amiability and gentleness — those are the distinguish- 
ing characteristics of both." 

This being said aloud, gave Mr. Lammle an opportunity, as he 
came with Mr. Boffin from the window to the breakfast table, of 
taking up his dear and honoured wife, 

" My Sophronia," said that gentleman, " your too partial estimate 
of your poor husband's character " 

" No ! Not too partial, Alfred," urged the lady, tenderly moved ; 
"never say that." 

"My child, your favourable opinion, then, of your husband — 
you don't object to that phrase, darling?" 

"How can I, Alfred?" 

" Your favourable opinion, then, my Precious, does less than jus- 
tice to Mr. Boffin, and more than justice to me." 

" To the first charge, Alfred, I plead guilty. But to the second, 
oh no, no ! " 

" Less than justice to Mr. Boffin, Sophronia," said Mr. Lammle, 
soaring into a tone of moral grandeur, "because it represents Mr. 
Boffin as on my lower level ; more than justice to me, Sophronia, 
because it represents me as on Mr. Boffin's higher level. Mr. 
Boffin bears and forbears far more than I could." 

" Far more than you could for yourself, Alfred ? " 

"My love, that is not the question." 

" Not the question, Lawyer ? " said Mrs. Lammle, archly. 

" No, dear Sophronia. From my lower level, I regard Mr. Boffin 
as too generous, as possessed of too much clemency, as being too 
good to persons who are unworthy of him and ungrateful to him. To 
those noble qualities I can lay no claim. On the contrary, they 
rouse my indignation when I see them in action." 



I 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 617 

"Alfred!" 

"They rouse my indignation, my dear, against the unworthy 
persons, and give me a combative desire to stand between Mr. 
Bofl6n and all such persons. Why 1 Because in my lower nature I 
am more worldly and less delicate. Not being so magnanimous as 
Mr. Boffin, I feel his injuries more than he does himself, and feel 
more capable of opposing his injurers," 

It struck Mrs. Lammle that it appeared rather difficult this morn- 
ing to bring Mr. and Mrs. Boffin into agreeable conversation. Here 
had been several lures thrown out, and neither of them had uttered a 
word. Here were she, Mrs. Lammle, and her husband discoursing 
at once affectingly and effectively, but discoursing alone. Assuming 
that the dear old creatures were impressed by what they heard, 
still one would like to be sure of it, the more so, as at least one of 
the dear old creatures was somewhat pointedly referred to. If the 
dear old creatures were too bashful or too dull to assume their 
required places in the discussion, why then it would seem desirable 
that the dear old creatures should be taken by their heads and 
shoulders and brought into it. 

" But is not my husband saying in effect," asked Mrs, Lammle, 
therefore, with an innocent air, of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, " that he 
becomes unmindful of his own temporary misfortunes in his admira- 
tion of another whom he is burning to serve 1 And is not that mak- 
ing an admission that his nature is a generous one 1 I am wretched 
in argument, but surely this is so, dear Mr. and Mrs. Boffin ? " 

Still, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Boffin said a word. He sat with his 
eyes on his plate, eating his muffins and ham, and she sat shyly look- 
ing at the teapot. Mrs. Lammle's innocent appeal was merely 
thrown into the air to mingle with the steam of the urn. Glancing 
towards Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, she very slightly raised her eye- 
brows, as though inquiring of her husband : " Do I notice anything 
wrong here ? " 

Mr. Lammle, who had found his chest effective on a variety 
of occasions, manoeuvred his capacious shirt front into the largest 
demonstration possible, and then smiling retorted on his wife, thus : 

"Sophronia, darling, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin will remind you of 
the old adage, that self-praise is no recommendation." 

" Self-praise, Alfred ? Do you mean because we are one and the 
same 1 " 

" No, my dear child. I mean that you cannot fail to remember, 
if you reflect for a single moment, that what you are pleased to 
compliment me upon feeling in the case of Mr. Boffin, you have 
yourself confided to me as your own feeling in the case of Mrs. 
Boffin." 



618 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

("I shall be beaten by this Lawyer," Mrs. Lammle gaily whis- 
pered to Mrs. Boffin. "I am afraid I must admit it, if he presses 
me, for it's damagingly true.") 

Several white dints began to come and go about Mr. Lammle's 
nose, as he observed that Mrs. Boffin merely looked up from the 
teapot for a moment with an embarrassed smile, which was no 
smile, and then looked down again. 

" Do you admit the charge, Sophronia ? " inquired Alfred, in a 
rallying tone. 

" Really, I think," said Mrs. Laramie, still gaily, " I must throw 
myself on the protection of the Court. Am I bound to answer 
that question, my Lord ? " To Mr. Boffin. 

" You needn't if you don't like, ma'am," was his answer. " It's 
not of the least consequence." 

Both husband and wife glanced at him very doubtfully. His 
manner was grave, but not coarse, and derived some dignity from 
a certain repressed dislike of the tone of the conversation. 

Again Mrs. Lammle raised her eyebrows for instruction from her 
husband. He replied in a slight nod, "Try 'em again." 

" To protect myself against the suspicion of covert self-laudation, 
my dear Mrs. Boffin," said the airy Mrs. Lammle, "therefore, I 
must tell you how it was." 

" No. Pray don't," Mr. Boffin interposed. 

Mrs. Lammle turned to him laughingly. " The Court objects 1 " 

" Ma'am," said Mr. Boffin, the Court (if I am the Court) does 
object. The Court objects for two reasons. First, because the 
Court don't think it fair. Secondly, because the dear old lady, 
Mrs. Court (if I am Mr.) gets distressed by it." 

A very remarkable wavering between two bearings — between 
her propitiatory bearing there, and her defiant bearing at Mr. Twem- 
low's — was observable on the part of Mrs. Lammle as she said : 
" What does the Court not consider fair 1 " 

" Letting you go on," replied Mr. Boffin, nodding his head sooth- 
ingly, as who should say. We won't be harder on you than we can 
help ; we'll make the best of it. " It's not above-board and it's 
not fair. When the old lady is uncomfortable, there's sure to be 
good reason for it. I see she is uncomfortable, and I plainly see 
this is the good reason wherefore. Have you breakfasted, ma'am ? " 

Mrs. Lammle, settling into her defiant manner, pushed her plate 
away, looked at her husband, and laughed ; but by no means gaily. 

" Have 7/ou breakfasted, sir? " inquired Mr. Boffin. 

" Thank you," replied Alfred, showing all his teeth. " If Mrs. 
Boffin will oblige me, I'll take another cup of tea." 

He spilled a little of it over the chest which ought to have been 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 619 

so effective, and which had done so little ; but on the whole drank 
it with something of an air, though the coming and going dints 
got almost as large, the while, as if they had been made by press- 
ure of the teaspoon. " A thousand thanks," he then observed. 
"I have breakfasted." 

"Now, which," said Mr. Boffin softly, taking out a pocket-book, 
" which of you two is Cashier 1 " 

" Sophronia, my dear," remarked her husband, as he leaned back 
in his chair, waving his right hand towards her, while he hung his 
left hand by the thumb in the arm-hole of his waistcoat : "it shall 
be your department." 

" I would rather," said Mr. Boffin, " that it was your husband's, 
ma'am, because — but never mind because, I would rather have 
to do with him. However, what I have to say, I will say with as 
little offence as possible : if I can say it without any, I shall be 
heartily glad. You two have done me a service, a very great ser- 
vice, in doing what you did (my old lady knows what it was), and 
I have put into this envelope a bank note for a hundred pound. 
I consider the service well worth a hundred pound, and I am well 
pleased to pay the money. Would you do me the favour to take 
it, and likewise to accept my thanks ? " 

With a haughty action, and without looking towards him, Mrs. 
Lammle held out her left hand, and into it Mr, Boffin put the little 
packet. When she had conveyed it to her bosom, Mr. Lammle 
had the appearance of feeling relieved, and breathing more freely, 
as not having been quite certain that the hundred pounds were his, 
until the note had been safely transferred out of Mr. Boflin's keep- 
ing into his own Sophronia's. 

" It is not impossible," said Mr. Boffin, addressing Alfred, " that 
you have had some general idea, sir, of replacing Rokesmith, in 
course of time 1 " 

"It is not," assented Alfred, with a glittering smile and a great 
deal of nose, "not impossible." 

"And perhaps, ma'am," pursued Mr. Boffin, addressing Sophronia, 
" you have been so kind as to take up my old lady in your own 
mind, and to do her the honour of turning the question over 
whether you miglitn't one of these days have her in charge, like ? 
Whether you mightn't be a sort of Miss Bella Wilfer to her, and 
something more ? " 

" I should hope," returned Mrs. Lammle, with a scornful look 
and in a loud voice, " that if I were anything to your wife, sir, I 
could hardly fail to be something more than Miss Bella Wilfer, as 
you call her." 

" What do ^ou call her, ma'am ? " asked Mr. Boffin. 



620 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Mrs. Lammle disdained to reply, and sat defiantly beating one 
foot on the ground, 

" Again I think I may say, that's not impossible. Is it, sir ? " 
asked Mr. Bofiin, turning to Alfred. 

" It is not," said Alfred, smiling assent as before, "not impossible." 

"Now," said Mr. Boffin, gently, "it won't do. I don't wish to 
say a single word that might be afterwards remembered as unpleas- 
ant ; but it won't do." 

" Sophronia, my love," her husband repeated in a bantering man- 
ner, "you hear? It won't do." 

" No," said Mr. Boffin, with his voice still dropped, " it really 
won't. You positively must excuse us. If you'll go your way, 
we'll go ours, and so I hope this aff'air ends to the satisfaction of 
all parties." 

Mrs. Lammle gave him a look of a decidedly dissatisfied party 
demanding exemption from the category ; but said nothing. 

" The best thing we can make of the aff'air," said Mr. Boffin, 
" is a matter of business, and as a matter of business it's brought 
to a conclusion. You have done me a great service, a very great 
service, and I have paid for it. Is there any objection to the 
price?" 

Mr. and Mrs. Lammle looked at one another across the table, 
but neither could say that there was. Mr. Lammle shrugged his 
shoulders, and Mrs. Lammle sat rigid. 

" Very good," said Mr. Boffin. " We hope (my old lady and 
me) that you'll give us credit for taking the plainest and honestest 
shortcut that could be taken under the circumstances. We have 
talked it over with a deal of care (my old lady and me), and we 
have felt that at all to lead you on, or even at all to let you go 
on of your own selves, wouldn't be the right thing. So I have 
openly given you to understand that — " Mr. Boffin sought for 
a new turn of speech, but could find none so expressive as his former 
one, repeated in a confidential tone, " — that it won't do. If I 
could have put the case more pleasantly I would ; but I hope I 
haven't put it very unpleasantly; at all events I haven't meant to. 
So," said Mr. Boffin, by way of peroration, " wishing you well in 
the way you go, we now conclude with the observation that per- 
haps you'll go it." 

Mr. Lammle rose with an impudent laugh on his side of the table, 
and Mrs. Lammle rose with a disdainful frown on hers. At this 
moment a hasty foot Avas heard on the staircase, and Georgiana 
Podsnap broke into the room, unannounced and in tears. 

" Oh, my dear Sophronia," cried Georgiana, wringing her hands 
as she ran up to embrace her, " to think that you and Alfred should 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 621 

be ruined ! Oh, my poor dear Sophronia, to think that you should 
have had a Sale at your house after all your kindness to me ! Oh, 
Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, pray forgive me for this intrusion, but you 
don't know how fond I was of Sophronia when Pa wouldn't let 
me go there any more, or what I have felt for Sophronia since I 
heard from Ma of her having been brought low in the world. You 
don't, you can't, you never can, think, how I have lain awake at 
night and cried for my good Sophronia, my first and only friend ! " 

Mrs. Lammle's manner changed under the poor silly girl's em- 
braces, and she turned extremely pale : directing one appealing look, 
first to Mrs. Boffin, and then to Mr. Boffin. Both understood her 
instantly, with a more delicate subtlety than much better educated 
people, whose perception came less directly from the heart, could 
have brought to bear upon the case. 

"I haven't a minute," said poor little Georgiana, "to stay. I 
am out shopping early with Ma, and I said I had a headache and 
got Ma to leave me outside in the phaeton, in Piccadilly, and ran 
round to Sackville Street, and heard that Sophronia was here, and 
then Ma came to see, oh such a dreadful old stony woman from the 
country in a turban in Portland Place, and I said I wouldn't go up 
with Ma but would drive round and leave cards for the Boffins, 
which is taking a liberty with the name ; but oh my goodness I 
am distracted, and the phaeton's at the door, and what would Pa 
say if he knew it ! " 

"Don't ye be timid, my dear," said Mrs. Boffin. "You came 
in to see us." 

" Oh, no, I didn't," cried Georgiana. " It's very impolite, I 
know, but I came to see my poor Sophronia, my only friend. Oh ! 
how I felt the separation, my dear Sophronia, before I knew you 
were brought low in the world, and how much more I feel it now ! " 

There were actually tears in the bold woman's eyes, as the soft- 
headed and soft-hearted girl twined her arms about her neck. 

" But I've come on business," said Georgiana, sobbing and dry- 
ing her face, and then searching in a little reticule, " and if I don't 
despatch it I shall have come for nothing, and oh good gracious ! 
what would Pa say if he knew of Sackville Street, and what would 
Ma say if she was kept waiting on the doorsteps of that dreadful 
turban, and there never were such pawing horses as ours unsettling 
my mind every moment more and more when I want more mind 
than I have got, by pawing up Mr. Boffin's street where they have 
no business to be. Oh ! where is, where is it ? Oh ! I can't find 
it ! " All this time sobbing, and searching in the little reticule. 

"What do you miss, my dear?" asked Mr. Boffin, stepping 
forward. 



622 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" Oh ! it's little enough," replied Georgiana, " because Ma always 
treats me as if I was in the nursery (I am sure I wish I was ! ), 
but I hardly ever spend it, and it has mounted up to fifteen pounds, 
Sophronia, and I hope three five-pound notes are better than noth- 
ing, though so little, so little ! And now I have found that — oh, 
my goodness ! there's the other gone next ! Oh no, it isn't, here 
it is ! " 

With that, always sobbing and searching in the reticule, Georgi- 
ana produced a necklace. 

"Ma says chits and jewels have no business together," pursued 
Georgiana, "and that's the reason why I have no trinkets except 
this ; but I suppose my aunt Hawkinson was of a diff'erent opinion, 
because she left me this, though I used to think she might just as 
well have buried it, for it's always kept in jeweller's cotton. How- 
ever, here it is, I am thankful to say, and of use at last, and you'll 
sell it, dear Sophronia, and buy things with it." 

" Give it to me," said Mr. Bofiin, gently taking it. " I'll see 
that it's properly disposed of." 

" Oh ! are you such a friend of Sophronia's, Mr. Boffin ? " cried 
Georgiana. " Oh, how good of you ! Oh, my gracious ! there was 
something else, and it's gone out of my head ! Oh no, it isn't, I 
remember what it was. My grandmamma's property, that'll come 
to me when I am of age, Mr. Boffin, will be all my own, and 
neither Pa nor Ma nor anybody else will have any control over it, 
and what I wish to do is to make some of it over somehow to 
Sophronia and Alfred, by signing something somewhere that'll 
prevail on somebody to advance them something. I want them 
to have something handsome to bring them up in the world again. 
Oh, my goodness me ! Being such a friend of my dear Sophronia's,, 
you won't refuse me, will you ? " 

"No, no," said Mr. Boffin, "it shall be seen to." 

" Oh, thank you, thank you ! " cried Georgiana. "If my maid 
had a little note and half a crown, I could run round to the pastry- 
cook's to sign something, or I could sign something in the square 
if somebody would come and cough for me to let 'em in with the 
key, and would bring a pen and ink with 'em and a bit of blotting- 
paper. Oh, my gracious ! I must tear myself away, or Pa and Ma 
will both find out ! Dear, dear, Sophronia, good, good bye ! " 

The credulous little creature again embraced Mrs. Lammle most 
affectionately, and then held out her hand to Mr. Lammle. 

" Good bye, dear Mr. Lammle — I mean Alfred. You won't 
think after to-day that I have deserted you and Sophronia because 
you have been brought low in the world, will you ? Oh me ! oh 
me ! I have been crying my eyes out of my head, and Ma will be 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 623 

sure to ask me what's the matter. Oh, take me down, somebody, 
please, please, please ! " 

Mr. Boffin took her down, and saw her driven away, with her 
poor little red eyes and weak chin peering over the great apron of 
the custard-coloured phaeton, as if she had been ordered to expiate 
some childish misdemeanour by going to bed in the daylight, and 
were peeping over the counterpane in a miserable flutter of repent- 
ance and low spirits. Returning to the breakfast-room, he found 
Mrs. Lammle still standing on her side of the table, and Mr. Lammle 
on his side. 

" I'll take care," said Mr. Boffin, showing the money and the 
necklace, " that these are soon given back." 

Mrs. Lammle had taken up her parasol from a side table, 
and stood sketching with it on the pattern of the damask cloth, 
as she had sketched on the pattern of Mr. Twemlow's papered 
wall. 

" You \vill not undeceive her, I hope, Mr. Boffin ? " she said, turn- 
ing her head towards him, but not her eyes. 

" No," said Mr. Boffin. 

" I mean, as to the worth and value of her friend," Mrs. Lammle 
explained, in a measured voice, and with an emphasis on her last 
word. 

"No," he returned. "I may try to give a hint at her home 
that she is in want of kind and careful protection, but I shall say 
no more than that to her parents, and I shall say nothing to the 
young lady herself." 

"Mr. and Mrs. Boffin," said Mrs. Lammle, still sketching, and 
seeming to bestow great pains upon it, "there are not many people, 
I think, who, under the circumstances, would have been so consid- 
erate and sparing as you have been to me just now. Do you care to 
be thanked?" 

"Thanks are always worth having," said Mrs. Boffin, in her 
ready good nature. 

"Then thank you both." 

"Sophronia," asked her husband, mockingly, "are you senti- 
mental ? " 

"Well, well, my good sir," Mr. Boffin interposed, "it's a very 
good thing to think well of another person, and it's a very good 
thing to be thought well of by another person. Mrs. Lammle will 
be none the worse for it, if she is." 

" Much obliged. But I asked Mrs. Lammle if she was." 

She stood sketching on the table-cloth, with her face clouded and 
set, and was silent. 

" Because," said Alfred, " I am disposed to be sentimental my- 



624 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

self, on your appropriation of the jewels and the money, Mr, Boffin. 
As our little Georgiana said, three five-pound notes are better than 
nothing, and if you sell a necklace you can buy things with the 
produce." 

"//' you sell it," was Mr. Boffin's comment, as he put it in his 
pocket. 

Alfred followed it with his looks, and also greedily pursued the 
notes until they vanished into Mr. Boffin's waistcoat pocket. Then 
he directed a look, half exasperated and half jeering, at his wife. 
She still stood sketching ; but, as she sketched, there was a struggle 
within her, which found expression in the depth of the few last 
lines of the parasol point indented into the table-cloth, and then 
some tears fell from her eyes. 

"Why, confound the woman," exclaimed Lammle, "she is senti- 
mental." 

She walked to the window, flinching under his angry stare, 
looked out for a moment, and turned round quite coldly. 

"You have had no former cause of complaint on the sentimental 
score, Alfred, and you will have none in future. It is not worth 
your noticing. We go abroad soon, with the money we have 
earned here ? " 

"You know we do ; you know we must." 

" There is no fear of my taking any sentiment with me. I 
should soon be eased of it, if I did. But it will be all left behind. 
It is all left behind. Are you ready, Alfred ? " 

" What the deuce have I been waiting for but you, Sophronia ? " 

"Let us go then. I am sorry I have delayed our dignified 
departure." 

She passed out and he followed her. Mr. and Mrs. Boffin had 
the curiosity softly to raise a window and look after them as 
they went down the long street. They walked arm in arm, showily 
enough, but without appearing to interchange a syllable. It might 
have been fanciful to suppose that under their outer bearing there 
was something of the shamed air of two cheats who were linked 
together by concealed handcufis ; but, not so, to suppose that they 
were haggardly weary of one another, of themselves, and of all this 
world. In turning the street corner they might have turned out of 
this world, for anything Mr. and Mrs. Boffin ever saw of them to 
the contrary; for they set eyes on the Lammles never more. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 625 

CHAPTER III. 

THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN". 

The evening of that day being one of the reading evenings at the 
Bower, Mr. Boffin kissed Mrs. Boffin after a five o'clock dinner, 
and trotted out, nursing his big stick in both arms, so that, as of 
old, it seemed to be whispering in his ear. He carried so very 
attentive an expression on his countenance that it appeared as if the 
confidential discourse of the big stick required to be followed closely. 
Mr. Boffin's face was like the face of a thoughtful listener to an 
intricate communication, and, in trotting along, he occasionally 
glanced at that companion with the look of a man who was inter- 
posing the remark, " You don't mean it ! " 

Mr. Boffin and his stick went on alone together, until they 
arrived at certain cross-ways where they would be likely to fall in 
with any one coming, at about the same time, from Clerkenwell to 
the Bower. Here they stopped, and Mr. Boffin consulted his watch. 

"It wants five minutes, good, to Venus's appointment," said he. 
" I'm rather early." 

But Venus was a punctual man, and, even as Mr. Boffin replaced 
his watch in its pocket, was to be descried coming towards him. 
He quickened his pace on seeing Mr. Boffin already at the place of 
meeting, and was soon at his side. 

"Thank'ee, Venus," said Mr. Boffin. " Thank'ee, thank'ee, 
thank'ee!" 

It would not have been very evident why he thanked the anatomist, 
but for his furnishing the explanation in what he went on to say. 

" All right, Venus, all right. Now, that you've been to see me, 
and have consented to keep up the appearance before Wcgg of 
remaining in it for a time, I have got a sort of a backer. All right, 
Venus. Thank'ee, Venus. Thank'ee, thank'ee, thank'ee ! " 

Mr. Venus shook the proffered hand with a modest air, and they 
pursued the direction of the Bower. 

"Do you think Wegg is likely to drop down upon me to-night, 
Venus ? " inquired Mr. Boffin, wistfully, as they went along. 

" I think he is, sir." 

" Have you any particular reason for thinking so, Venus ? " 

"Well, sir," returned the personage, "the fact is, he has given 
me another look-in, to make sure of what he calls our stock-in-trade 
being correct, and he has mentioned his ihtention that he was not 
to be put off" beginning with you the very next time you should 
come. And this," hinted Mr. Venus, delicately, "being the very 

next time, you know, sir " 

2s 



626 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" — Why, therefore, you suppose he'll turn to at the grindstone, 
eh, Venus ? " said Mr. Boffin. 

"Just so, sir." 

Mr. Boffin took his nose in his hand, as if it were already excori- 
ated, and the sparks were beginning to fly out of that feature. 
" He's a terrible feUow, Venus ; he's an awful fellow. I don't know 
how ever I shall go through with it. You must stand by me, Venus, 
like a good man and true. You'll do all you can to stand by me, 
Venus ; won't you? " 

Mr. Venus replied with the assurance that he would ; and Mr. 
Boffin, looking anxious and dispirited, pursued the way in silence 
until they rang at the Bower gate. The stumping approach of 
Wegg was soon heard behind it, and as it turned upon its hinges 
he became visible with his hand on the lock. 

" Mr. Boffin, sir 1 " he remarked. " You're quite a stranger ! " 

" Yes. I've been otherwise occupied, Wegg." 

"Have you indeed, sir?" returned the literary gentleman, with 
a threatening sneer. " Hah ! I've been looking for you, sir, rather 
what I may call specially," 

" You don't say so, Wegg ? " 

"Yes, I do say so, sir. And if you hadn't come round to me 
to-night, dash my wig if I wouldn't have come round to you to- 
morrow. Now ! I tell you ! " 

" Nothing wrong, I hope, Wegg ? " 

"Oh no, Mr. Boffin," was the ironical answer. "Nothing 
wrong ! What should be wrong in Boffinses Bower ! Step in, sir. 

* If you'll come to the Bower I've shaded for you, 
Your bed shan't be roses all spangled with doo : 
Will you, will you, will you, will you, come to the Bower ? 
Oh, won't you, won't you, won't you, won't you, come to the 
Bower?'" 

An unholy glare of contradiction and offence shone in the eyes 
of Mr. Wegg, as he turned the key on his patron, after ushering 
him into the yard with this vocal quotation. Mr. Boffin's air was 
crestfallen and submissive. Whispered Wegg to Venus, as they 
crossed the yard behind him : " Look at the worm and minion ; 
he's down in the mouth already." Whispered Venus to Wegg: 
" That's because I've told him. I've prepared the way for you." 

Mr. Boffin, entering the usual chamber, laid his stick upon the 
settle usually reserved for him, thrust his hands into his pockets, 
and, with his shoulders raised and his hat drooping back upon 
them, looked disconsolately at Wegg. "My friend and partner, 
Mr. Venus, gives me to understand," remarked that man of might, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 627 

addressing him, " that you are aware of our power over you. Now, 
when you have took your hat off, we'll go into that pint." 

Mr. Boffin shook it off with one shake, so that it dropped on 
the floor behind him, and remained in his former attitude with his 
former rueful look upon him. 

" First of all, I'm a going to call you Boffin, for short," said 
Wegg. " If you don't like it, it's open to you to lump it." 

" I don't mind it, Wegg," Mr. Boffin replied. 

" That's lucky for you, Boffin. Now, do you want to be read 
to?" 

" I don't particularly care about it to-night, Wegg." 

"Because if you did want to," pursued Mr. Wegg, the brilliancy 
of whose point was dimmed by his having been unexpectedly an- 
swered : "you wouldn't be. I've been your slave long enough. 
I'm not to be trampled under-foot by a dustman any more. ''With 
the single exception of the salary, I renounce the whole and total 
sitiwation." 

" Since you say it is to be so, Wegg," returned Mr. Boffin, with 
folded hands, " I suppose it must be." 

" / suppose it must be," Wegg retorted. " Next (to clear the 
ground before coming to business), you've placed in this yard a 
skulking, a sneaking, and a sniffing menial." 

"He hadn't a cold in his head when I sent him here," said 
Mr. Boffin. 

" Boffin ! " retorted Wegg, " I warn you not to attempt a joke 
with me ! " 

Here Mr. Venus interposed, and remarked that he conceived 
Mr. Boffin to have taken the description literally ; the rather, for- 
asmuch as he, Mr. Venus, had himself supposed the menial to 
have contracted an affliction or a habit of the nose, involving a 
serious drawback on the pleasures of social intercourse, until he 
had discovered that Mr. Wegg's description of him was to be ac- 
cepted as merely figurative. 

"Any how, and every how," said Wegg, "he has been planted 
here, and he is here. Now, I won't have him here. So I call 
upon Boffin, before I say another word, to fetch him in and send 
him packing to the right-about." 

The unsuspecting Sloppy was at that moment airing his many 
buttons within view of the window. Mr. Boffin, after a short in- 
terval of impassive discomfiture, opened the window and beckoned 
him to come in. 

" I call upon Boffin," said Wegg, with one arm a-kimbo and his 
head on one side, like a bullying counsel pausing for an answer 
from a witness, " to inform that menial that I am Master here." 



628 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

In humble obedience, when the button-gleaming Sloppy entered, 
Mr. Boffin said to him : " Sloppy, my fine fellow, Mr. Wegg is 
Master here. He doesn't want you, and you are to go from here." 

" For good ! " Mr. Wegg severely stipulated. 

" For good," said Mr. Boffin. 

Sloppy stared, with both his eyes and all his buttons, and his 
mouth wide open ; but was without loss of time escorted forth by 
Silas Wegg, pushed out at the yard gate by the shoulders, and 
locked out. 

" The atomspear," said Wegg, stumping back into the room 
again, a little reddened by his late exertion, " is now freer for the 
purposes of respiration. Mr. Venus, sir, take a chair. Boffin, you 
may sit down." 

Mr. Boffin, still with his hands ruefully stuck in his pockets, sat 
on the edge of the settle, shrunk into a small compass, and eyed the 
potent Silas with conciliatory looks. 

"This gentleman," said Silas Wegg, pointing out Venus, "this 
gentleman. Boffin, is more milk and watery with you than I'll be. 
But he hasn't borne the Roman yoke as I have, nor yet he hasn't 
been required to pander to your depraved appetite for miserly 
characters." 

" I never meant, my dear Wegg — " Mr. Boffin was beginning, 
when Silas stopped him. 

" Hold your tongue, Boffin ! Answer when you're called upon 
to answer. You'll find you've got quite enough to do. Now, 
you're aware — are you — that you're in possession of property to 
which you've no right at all ? Are you aware of that ? " 

" Venus tells me so," said Mr. Boffin, glancing towards him for 
any support he could give. 

" / tell you so," returned Silas. " Now, here's my hat. Boffin, 
and here's my walking-stick. Trifle with me, and instead of mak- 
ing a bargain with you, I'll put on my hat and take up my walk- 
ing-stick, and go out and make a bargain with the rightful owner. 
Now, what do you say 1 " 

" I say," returned Mr. Boffin, leaning forward in alarmed appeal, 
with his hands on his knees, " that I am sure I don't want to trifle, 
Wegg. I have said so to Venus." 

" You certainly have, sir," said Venus. 

" You're too milk and watery with our friend, you are indeed," 
remonstrated Silas, with a disapproving shake of his wooden head. 
" Then at once you confess yourself desirous to come to terms, do 
you. Boffin ? Before you answer, keep this hat well in your mind, 
and also this walking-stick." 

"I am willing, Wegg, to come to terms." 



t 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 629 

"Willing won't do, Boffin. I won't take willing. Are you de- 
sirous to come to terms ? Do you ask to be allowed as a favour to 
come to terms ? " Mr. Wegg again planted his arm, and put his 
head on one side. 

"Yes." 

" Yes what 1 " said the inexorable Wegg : " I won't take yes. 
I'll have it out of you in full, Boffin." 

" Dear me ! " cried that unfortunate gentleman. "I am so 
worrited! I ask to be allowed to come to terms, supposing your 
document is all correct." 

"Don't you be afraid of that," said Silas, poking his head at 
him. "You shall be satisfied by seeing it. Mr. Venus will show 
it you, and I'll hold you the while. Then you want to know what 
the terms are. Is that about the sum and substance of it 1 Will 
you or won't you answer, Boffin ? " For he had paused a moment. 

"Dear me!" cried that unfortunate gentleman again, "lam 
worrited to that degree that I'm almost off my head. You hurry 
me so. Be so good as name the terms, Wegg." 

"Now, mark. Boffin," returned Silas. "Mark 'em well, because 
they're the lowest terms and the only terms. You'll throw your 
Mound (the little Mound as comes to you any way) into the gen- 
eral estate, and then you'll divide the whole property into three 
parts, and you'll keep one and hand over the others." 

Mr. Venus 's mouth screwed itself up, as Mr. Boffin's face length- 
ened itself, Mr. Venus not having been prepared for such a rapa- 
cious demand. 

"Now, wait a bit, Boffin," Wegg proceeded, "there's something 
more. You've been a squandering this property — laying some of 
it out on yourself. That won't do. You've bought a house. 
You'll be charged for it." 

" I shall be ruined, Wegg ! " Mr. Boffin faintly protested. 

" Now, wait a bit. Boffin ; there's something more. You'll 
leave me in sole custody of these Mounds till they're all laid low. 
If any waluables should be found in 'em, I'll take care of such 
waluables. You'll produce your contract for the sale of the 
Mounds, that we may know to a penny what they're worth, and 
you'll make out likewise an exact list of all the other property. 
When the Mounds is cleared away to the last shovel-full, the final 
diwision will come off." 

" Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful ! I shaU die in a workhouse ! " 
cried the Golden Dustman, with his hands to his head. 

"Now, wait a bit. Boffin; there's something more. You've 
been unlawfully ferreting about this yard. You've been seen in 
the act of ferreting about this yard. Two pair of eyes at the 



630 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

present moment brought to bear upon you, have seen you dig up 
a Dutch bottle." 

"It was mine, Wegg," protested Mr. Boffin. "I jDut it there 
myself." 

"What was in it, Boffin?" inquired Silas. 

" Not gold, not silver, not bank notes, not jewels, nothing that 
you could turn into money, Wegg ; upon my soul ! " 

"Prepared, Mr. Venus," said Wegg, turning to his partner with 
a knowing and superior air, " for an ewasive answer on the part of 
our dusty friend here, I have hit out a little idea which I think 
will meet your views. We charge that bqttle against our dusty 
friend at a thousand pound." 

Mr. Boffin drew a deep groan. 

" Now, wait a bit. Boffin ; there's something more. In your 
employment is an under-handed sneak, named Rokesmith. It 
won't answer to have him about, while this business of ours is 
about. He must be discharged." 

"Rokesmith is already discbarged," said Mr. Boffin, speaking in 
a muffled voice, with his hands before his face, as he rocked him- 
self on the settle. 

" Already discharged, is he ? " returned Wegg, surprised. " Oh ! 
Then, Boffin, I believe there's nothing more at present." 

The unlucky gentleman continuing to rock himself to and fro, 
and to utter an occasional moan, Mr. Venus besought him to bear 
up against his reverses, and to take time to accustom himself to 
the thought of his new position. But, his taking time was exactly 
the thing of all others that Silas Wegg could not be induced to 
hear of. "Yes or no, and no half measures ! " was the motto which 
that obdurate person many times repeated; shaking his fist at Mr. 
Boffin, and pegging his motto into the floor with his wooden leg, 
in a threatening and alarming manner. 

At length Mr. Boffin entreated to be allowed a quarter of an 
hour's grace, and a cooling walk of that duration in the yard. 
With some difficulty Mr. Wegg granted this great favour, but only 
on condition that he accompanied Mr. Boffin in his walk, as not 
knowing what he might fraudulently unearth if he were left to 
himself. A more absurd sight than Mr. Boffin in his mental irrita- 
tion trotting very nimbly, and Mr. Wegg hopping after him with 
great exertion, eager to watch the slightest turn of an eyelash, lest 
it should indicate a spot rich with some secret, assuredly had never 
been seen in the shadow of the Mounds. Mr. Wegg was much dis- 
tressed when the quarter of an hour expired, and came hopping in, 
a very bad second. 

"I can't help myself!" cried Mr. Boffin, flouncing on the settle 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 631 

in a forlorn manner, with his hands deep in his pockets, as if his 
pockets had sunk. "What's the good of my pretending to stand 
out, when I can't help myself? I must give in to the terms. But 
I should like to see the document." 

Wegg, who was all for clinching the nail he had so strongly 
driven home, announced that Boffin should see it without an hour's 
delay. Taking him into custody for that purpose, or overshadow- 
ing him as if he really were his Evil Genius in visible form, Mr. 
Wegg clapped Mr. Boffin's hat upon the back of his head, and 
walked him out by the arm, asserting a proprietorship over his soul 
and body that was at once more grim and more ridiculous than 
anything in Mr. Venus's rare collection. That light-haired gentle- 
man followed close upon their heels, at least backing up Mr. Boffin 
in a literal sense, if he had not had recent opportunities of doing 
so spiritually ; while Mr. Boffin, trotting on as hard as he could 
trot, involved Silas Wegg in frequent collisions with the public, 
much as a preoccupied blind man's dog may be seen to involve his 
master. 

Thus they reached Mr. Venus's establishment, somewhat heated 
by the nature of their progress thither. Mr. Wegg, especially, 
was in a flaming glow, and stood in the little shop, panting and 
mopping his head with his pocket-handkerchief, speechless for sev- 
eral minutes. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Venus, who had left the duelling frogs to fight 
it out in his absence by candlelight for the public delectation, put 
the shutters up. ' When all was snug, and the shop-door fastened, 
he said to the perspiring Silas : "I suppose, Mr. Wegg, we may 
now produce the paper 1 " 

"Hold on a minute, sir," replied that discreet character; "hold 
on a minute. Will you obligingly shove that box — which you 
mentioned on a former occasion as containing miscellanies — towards 
me in the midst of the shop here ? " 

Mr. Venus did as he was asked. 

"Very good," said Silas, looking about: "ve — ry good. Will 
you hand me that chair, sir, to put a-top of it ? " 

Venus handed him the chair. 

" Now, Boffin," said Wegg, " mount up here and take your seat, 
will you?" 

Mr. Boffin, as if he were about to have his portrait painted, or 
to be electrified, or to be made a Freemason, or to be placed at any 
other solitary disadvantage, ascended the rostrum prepared for him. 

"Now, Mr. Venus," said Silas, taking off his coat, "when I 
catches our friend here round the arms and body, and pins him 
tight to the back of the chair, you may show him what he wants 



632 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

to see. If you'll open it and hold it well up in one hand, sir, and 
a candle in the other, he can read it charming." 

Mr. Boffin seemed rather inclined to object to these precaution- 
ary arrangements, but, being immediately embraced by Wegg, 
resigned himself. Venus then produced the document, and Mr. 
Boffin slowly spelt it out aloud : so very slowly, that Wegg, who was 
holding him in the chair with the grip of a wrestler, became again 
exceedingly the worse for his exertions. " Say when you've put 
it safe back, Mr. Venus," he uttered with difficulty, "for the strain 
of this is terrimenjious." 

At length the document was restored to its place ; and Wegg, 
whose uncomfortable attitude had been that of a very persevering 
man unsuccessfully attempting to stand upon his head, took a seat 
to recover himself. Mr. Boffin, for his part, made no attempt to 
come down, but remained aloft disconsolate. 

" Well, Boffin ! " said Wegg, as soon as he was in a condition to 
speak. " Now you know ! " 

" Yes, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin, meekly. " Now I know." 

"You have no doubts about it. Boffin ?" 

"No, Wegg. No, Wegg. None," was the slow and sad reply. 

" Then, take care, you," said Wegg, "that you stick to your con- 
ditions. Mr. Venus, if on this auspicious occasion you should 
happen to have a drop of anything not quite so mild as tea in the 
'ouse, I think I'd take the friendly liberty of asking you for a speci- 
men of it." 

Mr. Venus, reminded of the duties of hospitality, produced some 
rum. In answer to the inquiry, "Will you mix it, Mr. Wegg?" 
that gentleman pleasantly rejoined, "I think not, sir. On so 
auspicious an occasion, I prefer to take it in the form of a 
Gum-Tickler." 

Mr. Boffin, declining rum, being still elevated on his pedestal, 
was in a convenient position to be addressed. Wegg having eyed 
him with an impudent air at leisure, addressed him, therefore, while 
refreshing himself with his dram. 

" Bof— fin ! " 

"Yes, Wegg," he answered, coming out of a fit of abstraction, 
with a sigh. 

" I haven't mentioned one thing, because it's a detail that comes 
of course. You must be followed up, you know. You must be 
kept under inspection." 

"I don't quite understand," said Mr. Boffin. 

"Don't you?" sneered Wegg. "Where's your wits, Boffin? 
Till the Mounds is down and this business completed, you're account- 
able for all the property, recollect. Consider yourself accountable 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 633 

to me. Mr. Venus here being too milk and watery with you, I 
am the boy for you." 

"I've been a thinking," said Mr. Boffin, in a tone of despondency, 
" that I must keep the knowledge from my old lady." 

" The knowledge of the diwision, d'ye mean ? " inquired Wegg, 
helping himself to a third Gum-Tickler — for he had already taken 
a second. 

" Yes. If she was to die first of us two she might then think 
all her life, poor thing, that I had got the rest of the fortune still, 
and was saving it." 

" I suspect. Boffin," returned Wegg, shaking his head sagaciously, 
and bestowing a wooden wink upon him, " that you've found out 
some account of some old chap, supposed to be a Miser, who got 
himself the credit of having much more money than he had. How- 
ever, / don't mind." 

" Don't you see, Wegg ? " Mr. Boffin feelingly represented to 
him : " don't you see ? My old lady has got so used to the property. 
It would be such a hard surprise." 

" I don't see it at all," blustered Wegg. " You'll have as much 
as I shall. And who are you ? " 

" But then, again," Mr. Boffin gently represented ; " my old lady 
has very upright principles." 

" Who's your old lady," returned Wegg, " to set herself up for 
having uprighter principles than mine ? " 

Mr. Boffin seemed a little less patient at this point than at any 
other of the negotiations. But he commanded himself, and said 
tamely enough : "I think it must be kept from my old lady, Wegg." 

" Well," said Wegg, contemptuously, though, perhaps, perceiving 
some hint of danger otherwise, "keep it from your old lady. / 
ain't going to tell her. I can have you under close inspection 
without that. I'm as good a man as you, and better. Ask Mie 
to dinner. Give me the run of your 'ouse. I was good enough 
for you and your old lady once, when I helped you out with your 
weal and hammers. Was there no Miss Elizabeth, Master George, 
Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, before you two ? " 

" Gently, Mr. Wegg, gently," Venus urged. 

"Milk and water-erily you mean, sir," he returned, with some 
little thickness of speech, in consequence of the Gum-Ticklers 
having tickled it. " I've got him under inspection, and I'll inspect 
him. 

' Along the line the signal ran, 
England expects as this present man 
Will keep Boffin to his duty.' 

— Boffin, I'll see you home." 



634 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Mr. Boffin descended with an air of resignation, and gave himself 
up, after taking friendly leave of Mr. Venus. Once more. Inspector 
and Inspected went through the streets together, and so arrived at 
Mr. Boffin's door. 

But even there, when Mr. Boffin had given his keeper good night, 
and had let himself in with his key, and had softly closed the door, 
even there and then, the all-powerful Silas must needs claim another 
assertion of his newly-asserted power. 

"Bof — fin ! " he called through the keyhole. 

"Yes, Wegg," was the reply through the same channel. 

" Come out. Show yourself again. Let's have another look at 
you ! " 

Mr. Boffin — ah, how fallen from the high estate of his honest 
simplicity ! — opened the door and obeyed. 

" Go in. You may get to bed now," said Wegg, with a grin. 

The door was hardly closed, when he again called through the 
keyhole : 

" Bof— fin ! " 

"Yes, Wegg." 

This time Silas made no reply, but laboured with a will at turn- 
ing an imaginary grindstone outside the keyhole, while Mr. Boffin 
stooped at it within ; he then laughed silently, and stumped home. 



CHAPTER IV. 

A RUNAWAY MATCH. 

Cherubic' Pa arose with as little noise as possible from beside 
majestic Ma, one morning early, having a holiday before him. Pa 
and the lovely woman had a rather particular appointment to 
keep. 

Yet Pa and the lovely woman were not going out together. 
Bella was up before four, but had no bonnet on. She was waiting 
at the foot of the stairs — was sitting on the bottom stair, in fact 
— to receive Pa when he came down, but her only object seemed 
to be to get Pa well out of the house. 

"Your breakfast is ready, sir," whispered Bella, after greeting 
him with a hug, " and all you have to do, is, to eat it up and drink 
it up, and escape. How do you feel, Pa ? " 

" To the best of my judgment, like a housebreaker new to the 
business, my dear, who can't make himself quite comfortable till he 
is off the premises." 

Bella tucked her arm in his with a merry noiseless laugh, and 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 635 

they went down to the kitchen on tiptoe ; she stopping on every 
separate stair to put the tip of her forefinger on her rosy lips, 
and then lay it on his lips, according to her favourite petting way 
of kissing Pa. 

" How do you feel, my love % " asked R. W., as she gave him 
his breakfast. 

" I feel as if the Fortune-teller was coming true, dear Pa, and 
the fair little man was turning out as was predicted." 

" Ho ! Only the fair little man % " said her father. 

Bella put another of those finger-seals upon his lips, and then 
said, kneeling down by him as he sat at table : " Now, look here, 
sir. If you keep well up to the mark this day, what do you think 
you deserve ? What did I promise you should have, if you were 
good, upon a certain occasion % " . 

"Upon my word I don't remember, Precious. Yes, I do, 
though. Wasn't it one of those beau — tiful tresses?" with his 
caressing hand upon her hair. 

" Wasn't it, too ! " returned Bella, pretending to pout. " Upon 
my word ! Do you know, sir, that the Fortune-teller would give 
five thousand guineas (if it was quite convenient to him, which 
it isn't) for the lovely piece I have cut ofi" for you % You can form 
no idea, sir, of the number of times he kissed quite a scrubby little 
piece — in comparison — that I cut off for him. And he wears 
it, too, round his neck, I can tell you ! Near his heart ! " said 
Bella, nodding. "Ah! very near his heart. However, you have 
been a good, good boy, and you are the best of all the dearest boys 
that ever were, this morning, and here's the chain I have made of 
it. Pa, and you must let me put it round your neck with my own 
loving hands." 

As Pa bent his head, she cried over him a little, and then said 
(after having stopped to dry her eyes on his white waistcoat, the 
discovery of which incongruous circumstance made her laugh) : 
" Now, darling Pa, give me your hands that I may fold them to- 
gether, and do you say after me : — My little Bella." 

" My little Bella," repeated Pa. 

"I am very fond of you." 

" I am very fond of you, my darling," said Pa. 

"You mustn't say anything not dictated to you, sir. You 
daren't do it in your responses at Church, and you mustn't do it 
in your responses out of Church." 

" I withdraw the darling," said Pa. 

" That's a pious boy ! Now again : — You were always — " 

"You were always," repeated Pa. 

"A vexatious — " 



636 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" No you weren't," said Pa. 

" A vexatious (do you hear, sir ?), vexatious, capricious, thankless, 
troublesome Animal ; but I hope you'll do better in the time to oome, 
and I bless you and forgive you ! " Here, she quite forgot that it 
was Pa's turn to make the responses, and clung to his neck. 
" Dear Pa, if you knew how much I think this morning of what 
you told me once, about the first time of our seeing old Mr. 
Harmon, when I stamped and screamed and beat you with my 
detestable little bonnet ! I feel as if I had been stamping and 
screaming and beating you with my hateful little bonnet, ever since 
I was born, darling ! " 

" Nonsense, my love. And as to your bonnets, they have always 
been nice bonnets, for they have always become you — or you have 
become them ; perhaps it was that — at eveiy age." 

" Did I hurt you much, poor little Pa ? " asked Bella, laughing 
(notwithstanding her repentance), with fantastic pleasure in the 
picture, "when I beat you with my bonnet*?" 

" No, my child. Wouldn't liave hurt a fly ! " 

" Ay, but I am afraid I shouldn't have beat you at all, unless I 
had meant to hurt you," said Bella. "Did I pinch your legs, 
Pa?" 

"Not much, my dear; but I think it's almost time I " 

" Oh, yes ! " cried Bella. "If I go on chattering, you'll be 
taken alive. Fly, Pa, fly ! " 

So, they went softly up the kitchen stairs on tiptoe, and Bella 
with her light hand softly removed the fastenings of the house door, 
and Pa, having received a parting hug, made off. When he had 
gone a little way, he looked back. Upon which, Bella set another 
of those finger seals upon the air, and thrust out her little foot ex- 
pressive of the mark. Pa, in appropriate action, expressed fidelity 
to the mark, and made off as fast as he could go. 

Bella walked thoughtfully in the garden for an hour and more, 
and then, returning to the bedroom where Lavvy the Irrepres- 
sible still slumbered, put on a little bonnet of quiet, but on the 
wliole of sly appearance, which she had yesterday made. " I am 
going for a walk, Lavvy," she said, as she stooj^ed down and 
kissed her. The Irrepressible, with a bounce in the bed, and a 
remark that it wasn't time to get up yet, relapsed into unconscious- 
ness, if she had come out of it. 

Behold Bella tripping along the streets, the dearest girl afoot 
under the summer sun ! Behold Pa waiting for Bella behind a 
pump, at least three miles from the parental roof- tree. Behold 
Bella and Pa aboard an early steamboat bound for Greenwich. 

Were they expected at Greenwich ? Probably. At least, Mr. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 637 

John Rokesmith was on the pier looking out, about a couple of 
hours before the coaly (but to him gold-clusty) little steamboat got 
her steam up in London. Probably. At least, Mr. John Roke- 
smith seemed perfectly satisfied when he descried them on board. 
Probably. At least, Bella no sooner stepped ashore than she took 
Mr. John Rokesmith's arm, without evincing surprise, and the two 
walked away together with an ethereal air of happiness which, as 
it were, wafted up from the earth and drew up after them a gruff 
and glum old pensioner to see it out. Two wooden legs had this 
gruff and glum old pensioner, and, a minute before Bella stepped 
out of the boat, and drew that confiding little arm of hers through 
Rokesmith's, he had had no object in life but tobacco, and not enough 
of that. Stranded was Gruff and Glum in a harbour of everlasting 
mud, when all in an instant Bella floated him, and away he went. 

Say, cherubic parent taking the lead, in what direction do we 
steer first 1 With some such inquiry in his thoughts. Gruff and 
Glum, stricken by so sudden an interest that he perked his neck 
and looked over the intervening people, as if he were trying to 
stand on tiptoe with his two wooden legs, took an observation of 
R. W. There was no " first " in the case, Gruff and Glum made 
out ; the cherubic parent was bearing down and crowding on direct 
for Greenwich church, to see his relations. 

For, Gruff and Glum, though most events acted on him simply 
as tobacco stoppers, pressing down and condensing the quids within 
him, might be imagined to trace a family resemblance between the 
cherubs in the church architecture, and the cherub in the white 
waistcoat. Some resemblance of old Valentines, wherein a cherub, 
less appropriately attired for a proverbially uncertain climate, had 
been seen conducting lovers to the altar, might have been fancied 
to inflame the ardour of his timber toes. Be it as it might, he gave 
his moorings the slip, and followed in chase. 

The clierub went before, all beaming smiles ; Bella and John 
Rokesmith followed; Gruff and Glum stuck to them like wax. 
For years, the wings of his mind had gone to look after the legs of 
his body ; but Bella had brought them back for him per steamer, 
and they were spread again. 

He was a slow sailer on a wind of happiness, but he took a 
cross cut for the rendezvous, and pegged away as if he were scoring 
furiously at cribbage. When the shadow of the church-porch swal- 
lowed them up, victorious Gruff and Glum likewise presented him- 
self to be swallowed up. And by this time the cherubic parent 
was so fearful of surprise, that, but for the two wooden legs on 
which Gruft' and Glum was reassuringly mounted, his conscience 
might have introduced, in the person of that pensioner, his own 



638 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

stately lady disguised, arrived at Greenwich in a car and griflfins, 
like the spiteful Faiiy at the christenings of the Princesses, to do 
something dreadful to the marriage service. And truly he had a 
momentary reason to be pale of face, and to whisper to Bella, " You 
don't think that can be your Ma ; do you, my dear 1 " on account 
of a mysterious rustling and a stealthy movement somewhere in 
the remote neighbourhood of the organ, though it was gone directly 
and was heard no more. Albeit it was heard of afterwards, as will 
afterwards be read in this veracious register of marriage. 

Who taketh ? I, John, and so do I, Bella. Who giveth ? I, 
R. W. Forasmuch, Gruff and Glum, as John and Bella, have con- 
sented together in holy wedlock, you may (in short) consider it 
done, and withdraw your two wooden legs from this temple. To 
the foregoing purport, the Minister speaking, as directed by the 
Rubric, to the People, selectly represented in the present instance 
by G. and G. above mentioned. 

And now, the church-porch having swallowed up Bella Wilfer 
for ever and ever, had it not in its power to relinquish that young 
woman, but slid into the happy sunlight, Mrs. John Rokesmith 
instead. And long on the bright steps stood Gruff and Glum, 
looking after the pretty bride, with a narcotic consciousness of 
having dreamed a dream. 

After which, Bella took out from her pocket a little letter, and 
read it aloud to Pa and John : this being a true copy of the same. 

"Dearest Ma, 

" I hope you won't be angry, but I am most happily married to 
Mr. John Rokesmith, who loves me better than I can ever deserve, 
except by loving him with all my heart. I thought it best not to 
mention it beforehand, in case it should cause any little difference 
at home. Please tell darling Pa. With love to Lavvy, 

" Ever dearest Ma, your affectionate daughter, 

" Bella 
" (P.S. — Rokesmith)." 

Then, John Rokesmith put the queen's countenance on the letter 
— when had Her Gracious Majesty looked so benign as on that 
blessed morning ! — and then Bella popped it into the post-olfice, 
and said merrily, " Now, dearest Pa, you are safe, and will never 
be taken alive ! " 

Pa was, at first, in the stirred depths of his conscience, so far 
from sure of being safe yet, that lie made out majestic matrons 
lurking in ambush among the harmless trees of Greenwich Park, 
and seemed to see a stately countenance tied up in a well-known 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 639 

pocket-handkerchief glooming down at him from a window of the 
Observatory, where the Familiars of the Astronomer Royal nightly 
outwatch the winking stars. But, the minutes passing on and no 
Mrs. Wilfer in the flesh appearing, he became more confident, and 
so repaired with good heart and appetite to Mr. and Mrs. John 
Rokesmith's cottage on Blackheath, where breakfast was ready. 

A modest little cottage but a bright and a fresh, and on the 
snowy table-cloth the prettiest of little breakfasts. In waiting, 
too, like an attendant summer breeze, a fluttering young damsel, all 
pink and ribbons, blushing as if she had been married instead of 
Bella, and yet asserting the triumph of her sex over John and Pa, 
in an exulting and exalted flurry : as who should say, " This is 
what you must all come to, gentlemen, when we choose to bring 
you to book." This same young damsel was Bella's serving-maid, 
and unto her did deliver a bunch of keys, commanding treasures 
in the way of drysaltery, groceries, jams and pickles, the investiga- 
tion of which made pastime after breakfast, when Bella declared 
that "Pa must taste everything, John dear, or it will never be 
lucky," and when Pa had all sorts of things poked into his mouth, 
and didn't quite know what to do with them when they were put 
there. 

Then they, all three, out for a charming ride, and for a charm- 
ing stroll among heath and bloom, and there behold the identical 
Gruff" and Glum with his wooden legs horizontally disposed before 
him, apparently sitting meditating on the vicissitudes of life ! To 
whom said Bella, in her light-hearted surprise : " Oh ! How do 
you again ? What a dear old pensioner you are ! " To which Gruff 
and Glum responded that he see her married this morning, my 
Beauty, and that if it warn't a liberty he wished her ji and the 
fairest of fair wind and weather ; further, in a general way request- 
ing to know what cheer 1 and scrambling up on his two wooden 
legs to salute, hat in hand, ship-shape, with the gallantry of a 
man-of-wars-man and a heart of oak. 

It was a pleasant sight, in the midst of the golden bloom, to see 
this salt old Gruff" and Glum waving his shovel hat at Bella, while 
his thin white hair flowed free, as if she had once more launched 
him into blue water again. " You are a charming old pensioner," 
said Bella, " and I am so happy that I wish I could make you 
happy, too." Answered Gruff" and Glum, " Give me leave to kiss 
your hand, my Lovely, and it's done ! " So it was done to the 
general contentment ; and if Gruff and Glum didn't in the course 
of the afternoon splice the main brace, it was not for want of the 
means of inflicthig that outrage on the feelings of the Infant Bands 
of Hope. 



640 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

But, the marriage dinner was the crowning success, for what 
had bride and bridegroom plotted to do, but to have and to hold 
that dinner in the very room of the very hotel where Pa and the 
lovely woman had once dined together ! Bella sat between Pa and 
John, and divided her attentions pretty equally, but felt it neces- 
sary (in the waiter's absence before dinner) to remind Pa that she 
was his lovely woman no longer. 

"I am well aware of it, my dear," returned the cherub, "and I 
resign you willingly." 

"Willingly, sir? You ought to be brokenhearted." 

"So I should be, my dear, if I thought that I was going to lose 
you." 

"But you know you are not; don't you, poor dear Pa? You 
know that you have only made a new relation who will be as fond 
of you and as thankful to you — for my sake and your own sake 
both — as I am ; don't you, dear little Pa 1 Look here, Pa ! " Bella 
put her finger on her own lip, and then on Pa's, then on her own 
lip again,. and then on her husband's. " Now, we are a partnership 
of three, dear Pa." 

The appearance of dinner here cut Bella short in one of her dis- 
appearances : the more effectually, because it was put on under the 
auspices of a solemn gentleman in black clothes and a white cravat, 
who looked much more like a clergyman than the clergyman, and 
seemed to have mounted a great deal higher in the church : not to- 
say, scaled the steeple. This dignitary, conferring in secrecy with 
John Rokesmith on the subject of punch and wines, bent his head 
as though stooping to the Papistical practice of receiving auricular 
confession. Likewise, on John's offering a suggestion which didn't 
meet his views, his face became overcast and reproachful, as enjoin- 
ing penance. 

What a dinner ! Specimens of all the fishes that s^vim in the 
sea, surely had swum their way to it, and if samples of the fishes 
of divers colours that made a speech in the Arabian Nights (quite a 
ministerial explanation in respect of cloudiness), and then jumped 
out of the frying-pan, were not to be recognised, it was only because 
they had all become of one hue by being cooked in batter among 
the whitebait. And the dishes being seasoned with Bliss — an 
article which they are sometimes out of, at Greenwich — were of 
perfect flavour, and the golden drinks had been bottled in the 
golden age and hoarding up their sparkles ever since. 

The best of it was, that Bella and John and the cherub had 
made a covenant that they would not reveal to mortal eyes any 
appearance whatever of being a wedding party. Now, the super- 
vising dignitary, the Archbishop of Greenwich, knew this as well 




2 T 



642 OUK MUTUAL FRIEND. 

as if he had performed the nuptial ceremony. And the loftiness 
with which his Grace entered into their confidence without being 
invited, and insisted on a show of keeping the waiters out of it, 
was the crownhig glory of the entertainment. 

There was an innocent young waiter of a slender form and with 
weakish legs, as yet unversed in the wiles of waiterliood, and but 
too evidently of a romantic temperament, and deeply (it were not 
too much to add hopelessly) in love with some young female not 
aware of his merit. This guileless youth, descrying the position of 
affairs, which even his innocence could not mistake, limited his 
waiting to languishing admiringly against the sideboard when Bella 
didn't want anything, and swooping at her when she did. Him, his 
Grace the Archbishop perpetually obstructed, cutting him out with 
his elbow in the moment of success, despatching him in degrading 
quest of melted butter, and, when by any chance he got hold of 
any dish worth having, bereaving him of it, and ordering him to 
stand back. 

" Pray excuse him, madam," said the Archbishop in a low stately 
voice ; "he is a very young man on liking, and we clonH like him." 

This induced John Eokesmith to observe — by way of making 
the thing more natural — " Bella, my love, this is so much more 
successful than any of our past anniversaries, that I think we must 
keep our future anniversaries here." 

Whereunto Bella replied, with probably the least successful 
attempt at looking matronly that ever was seen : " Indeed, I think 
so, John, dear." 

Here the Archbishop of Greenwich coughed a stately cough to 
attract the attention of three of his ministers present, and staring 
at them, seemed to say : "I call upon you by your fealty to believe 
this ! " 

With his own hands he afterwards put on the dessert, as remark- 
ing to the three guests, " The period has now arrived at which we 
can dispense Avith the assistance of those fellows who are not in our 
confidence," and would have retired witli complete dignity but for 
a daring action issuing from the misguided brain of tlie young man 
on liking. He finding, by ill-fortune, a piece of orange-flower some- 
where in the lobbies, now approached undetected with the same in 
a finger-glass, and placed it on Bella's right hand. The Archbishop 
instantly ejected and excommunicated him; but the thing was 
done. 

"I trust, madam," said his Grace, returning alone, "that you 
will have the kindness to overlook it, in consideration of its being 
the act of a very young man who is merely here on liking, and who 
will never answer." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 643 

With that, he solemnly bowed and retired, and they all burst 
into laughter, long and merry. "Disguise is of no use," said 
Bella; "they all find me out; I think it must be, Pa and John 
dear, because I look so happy ! " 

Her husband feeling it necessary at this point to demand one 
of those mysterious disappearances on Bella's part, she dutifully 
obeyed ; saying in a softened voice from her place of concealment : 

"You remember how we talked about the ships that day, Pa?" 

"Yes, my dear." 

" Isn't it strange, now, to think that there was no John in all 
the ships, Pa?" 

"Not at all, my dear." 

"Oh, Pa! Not at all?" 

" No, my dear. How can we tell what coming people are 
aboard the ships that may be sailing to us now from the unknown 
seas ! " 

Bella remaining invisible and silent, her father remained at his 
dessert and wine, until he remembered it was time for him to get 
home to Holloway. " Though I positively cannot tear myself 
away," he cherubically added," — -it would be a sin — without 
drinking to many, many happy returns of this most happy day." 

" Hear ! ten thousand times ! " cried John. " I fill my glass and 
my precious wife's." 

" Gentlemen," said the cherub, inaudibly addressing, in his Anglo- 
Saxon tendency to throw his feelings into the form of a speech, the 
boys down below, who were bidding against each other to put their 
heads in the mud for sixpence : " Gentlemen — and Bella and John 
— you will readily suppose that it is not my intention to trouble 
you with many observations on the present occasion. You will 
also at once infer the nature and even the terms of the toast I am 
about to propose on the present occasion. Gentlemen — and Bella 
and John — the present occasion is an occasion fraught with feel- 
ings that I cannot trust myself to express. But, gentlemen — and 
Bella and John — for the part I have had in it, for the confidence 
you have placed in me, and for the affectionate good-nature and 
kindness with which you have determined not to find me in the 
way, when I am well aware that I cannot be otherwise than in it 
more or less, I do most heartily thank you. Gentlemen — and 
BeUa and John — my love to you, and may we meet, as on the 
present occasion, on many future occasions ; that is to say, gentle- 
men — and Bella and John — on many happy returns of the pres- 
ent happy occasion." 

Having thus concluded his address, the amiable chenib embraced 
his daughter, and took his flight to the steamboat which was to 



644 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

convey him to London, and was then lying at the floating pier, 
doing its best to bump the same to bits. But, the happy couple 
were not going to part with him in that way, and before he iiad 
been on board two minutes, there they were, looking down at him 
from the wharf above. 

" Pa, dear ! " cried Bella, beckoning him with her parasol to 
approach the side, and bending gracefully to whisper. 

"Yes, my darling." 

" Did I beat you much with that horrid little bonnet. Pa ? " 

" Nothing to speak of, my dear." 

" Did I pinch your legs. Pa ? " 

" Only nicely, my pet." 

" You are sure you quite forgive me. Pa ? Please, Pa, please, 
forgive me quite ! " Half laughing at him and half ciying to him, 
Bella besought him in the prettiest manner ; in a manner so engag- 
ing and so playful and so natural, that her cherubic parent made a 
coaxing face as if she had never grown up, and said, "What a silly 
little Mouse it is ! " 

" But you do forgive me that, and everything else ; don't you, 
Pa?" 

"Yes, my dearest." 

" And you don't feel solitary or neglected, going away by your- 
self ; do you, Pa ? " 

" Lord bless you ! No, my Life ! " 

" Good bye, deilrest Pa. Good bye ! " 

" Good bye, my darling ! Take her away, my dear John. Take 
her home ! " 

So, she leaning on her husband's arm, they turned homeward by 
a rosy path which the gracious sun struck out for them in its set- 
ting. And there are days in this life, worth life and worth 
death. And what a bright old song it is, that O 'tis love, 'tis 
love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round ! 



CHAPTER V. 

CONCERNING THE MENDICANT'S BRIDE. 

The impressive gloom with which Mrs. Wilfer received her hus- 
band on his return from the wedding, knocked so hard at the door 
of the cherubic conscience, and likewise so impaired the firmness 
of the cherubic legs, that the culprit's tottering condition of mind 
and body might have roused suspicion in less occupied persons than 
the grimly heroic lady. Miss Lavinia, and that esteemed friend of 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 645 

the family, Mr. George Sampson. But, the attention of all three 
being fully possessed by the main fact of the marriage, they had 
happily none to bestow on the guilty conspirator ; to which fortu- 
nate circumstance he owed the escape for which he was in nowise 
indebted to himself. 

"You do not, R. W.," said Mrs. Wilfer from her stately corner, 
" inquire for your daughter Bella." 

"To be sure, my dear," he returned, with a most flagrant as- 
sumption of unconsciousness, " I did omit it. How — or perhaps 
I should rather say where — is Bella ? " 

"Not here," Mrs. Wilfer proclaimed, with folded arms. 

The cherub faintly muttered something to the abortive effect of 
" Oh, indeed, my dear ! " 

"Not here," repeated Mrs. Wilfer, in a stern sonorous voice. 
" In a word, R. W., you have no daughter Bella." 

"No daughter Bella, my dear?" 

"No. Your daughter Bella," said Mrs. Wilfer, with a lofty air 
of never having had the least copartnership in that young lady : of 
whom she now made reproachful mention as an article of luxury 
which her husband had set up entirely on his own account, and in 
direct opposition to her advice: " — your daughter Bella has be- 
stowed herself upon a Mendicant." 

" Good gracious, my dear ! " 

" Show your father his daughter Bella's letter, Lavinia," said 
Mrs. Wilfer, in her monotonous Act of Parliament tone, and waving 
her hand. " I think your father will admit it to be documentary 
proof of what I tell him. I believe your father is acquainted with 
his daughter Bella's writing. But I do not know. He may tell 
you he is not. Nothing will surprise me." 

" Posted at Greenwich, and dated this morning," said the Irre- 
pressible, flouncing at her father in handing him the evidence. 
" Hopes Ma won't be angry, but is happily married to Mr. John 
Rokesmith, and didn't mention it beforehand to avoid words, and 
please tell darling you, and love to me, and I should like to know 
what you'd have said if any other unmarried member of the family 
had done it ! " 

He read the letter, and faintly exclaimed " Dear me ! " 

"You may well say Dear me ! " rejoined Mrs. Wilfer, in a deep 
tone. Upon which encouragement he said it again, though scarcely 
with the success he had expected ; for the scornful lady then re- 
marked, with extreme bitterness : " You said that before." 

" It's very surprising. But I suppose, my dear," hinted the 
cherub, as he folded the letter after a disconcerting silence, " that 
we must make the best of it ! Would you object to my pointing 



646 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

out, my dear, that Mr. John Rokcsmith is not (so far as I am ac- 
quainted with him), strictly sjieaking, a Mendicant." 

"Indeed?" returned Mrs. Wilfer, with an awful air of polite- 
ness. "Truly so? I was not aware that Mr. John Rokesmith 
was a gentleman of landed property. But I am much relieved to 
hear it." 

"I doubt if you have heard it, my dear," the cherub submitted 
with hesitation. 

"Thank you," said Mrs. Wilfer, "I make false statements, it 
appears ? So be it. If my daughter flies in my face, surely my 
husband may. The one thing is not more unnatural than the 
other. There seems a fitness in the arrangement. By all means ! " 
Assuming, with a shiver of resignation, a deadly cheerfulness. 

But, here the Irrepressible skirmished into the conflict, dragging 
the reluctant form of Mr. Sampson after her. 

"Ma," interposed the young lady, "I must say I think it would 
be much better if you would keep to the point, and not hold forth 
about people's flying into people's faces, which is nothing more nor 
less than impossible nonsense." 

" How ! " exclaimed Mrs. Wilfer, knitting her dark brows. 

"Just im-possible nonsense, Ma," returned Lavvy, "and George 
Sampson knows it is, as well as I do." 

Mrs. Wilfer suddenly becoming petrified, fixed her indignant eyes 
upon the wretched George : who, divided between the support due 
from him to his love, and the support due from him to his love's 
mamma, supported nobody, not even himself. 

" The true point is," pursued Lavinia, " that Bella has behaved 
in a most unsisterly way to- me, and might have severely compro- 
mised me with George and with George's family, by making oft' 
and getting married in this very low and disreputable manner — 
with some pew-opener or other, I suppose, for a bridesmaid — when 
she ought to have confided in me, and ought to have said, 'If, 
Lavvy, you consider it due to your engagement with George, that 
you should countenance the occasion by being present, then, Lavvy, 
I beg you to he present, keeping my secret from Ma and Pa.' As 
of course I should have done." 

"As of course you would have done? Ingrate ! " exclaimed 
Mrs. Wilfer. "Viper!" 

"I say! You know, ma'am. Upon my honour you mustn't," 
Mr. Sampson remonstrated, shaking his head seriously. "With 
the highest respect for you, ma'am, upon my life you mustn't. No 
really, you know. When a man with the ifeelings of a gentleman 
finds himself engaged to a young lady, and it comes (even on the 
part of a member of the family) to vipers, you know ! — I would 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 647 

merely put it to your own good feeling, you know," said Mr, Samp- 
son, in rather lame conclusion. 

Mrs. Wilfer's baleful stare at the young gentleman in acknowl- 
edgment of his obliging interference was of such a nature that 
Miss Lavinia burst into tears, and caught him round the neck for 
his protection, 

"My own unnatural mother," screamed the young lady, "wants 
to annihilate George ! But you shan't be annihilated, George. 
I'll die first ! " 

Mr. Sampson, in the arms of his mistress, still struggled to 
shake his head at Mrs. Wilfer, and to remark : " With every senti- 
ment of respect for you, you know, ma'am — vipers really doesn't 
do you credit." 

"You shall not be annihilated, George!" cried Miss Lavinia. 
" Ma shall destroy me first, and then she'll be contented. Oh, oh, 
oh ! Have I lured George from his happy home to expose him to 
this ! George, dear, be free ! Leave me, ever dearest George, to 
Ma and to my fate. Give my love to your aunt, George dear, and 
implore her not to curse the viper that has crossed your path and 
blighted your existence. Oh, oh, oh !" The young lady, who, hys- 
terically speaking, was only just come of age, and had never gone 
off" yet, here fell into a highly creditable crisis, which, regarded as 
a first performance, was very successful ; Mr. Sampson, bending 
over the body meanwhile, in a state of distraction, which induced 
him to address Mrs. Wilfer in the inconsistent expressions : " Demon 
— with the highest respect for you — behold your work ! " 

The cherub stood helplessly rubbing his chin and looking on, 
but on the whole was inclined to welcome this diversion as one in 
which, by reason of the absorbent properties of hysterics, the pre- 
vious question would become absorbed. And so, indeed, it proved, 
for the Irrepressible gradually coming to herself, and asking with 
wild emotion, "George, dear, are you safe?" and further, "George, 
love, what has happened ? Where is Ma ? " Mr. Sampson, with 
words of comfort, raised her prostrate form, and handed her to 
Mrs. Wilfer as if the young lady were something in the nature of 
refreshments. Mrs. Wilfer with dignity partaking of the refresh- 
ments, by kissing her once on the brow (as if accepting an oyster). 
Miss Lavvy, tottering, returned to the protection of Mr. Sampson : 
to whom she said, " George, dear, I am afraid I have been foolish ; 
but I am still a little weak and giddy; don't let go my hand, 
George ! " And whom she afterwards greatly agitated at intervals, 
by giving utterance, when least expected, to a sound between a sob 
and a bottle of soda-water, that seemed to rend the bosom of her 
frock. 



648 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Among the most remarkable effects of this crisis may be men- 
tioned its having, when peace was restored, an inexplicable moral 
influence, of an elevating kind, on Miss Lavinia, Mrs. Wilfer, and 
Mr. George Sampson, from which R. W. was altogether excluded, 
as an outsider and non-sympathiser. Miss Lavinia assumed a 
modest air of having distinguished herself; Mrs. Wilfer, a serene 
air of forgiveness and resignation ; Mr. Sampson, an air of having 
been improved and chastened. The influence pervaded the spirit 
in which they returned to tlie previous question. 

"George, dear," said Lavvy, with a melancholy smile, "after 
what has passed, I am sure Ma will tell Pa that he may tell Bella 
we shall all be glad to see her and her husband." 

Mr. Sampson said he was sure of it too ; murmuring how emi- 
nently he respected Mrs. Wilfer, and ever must, and ever would. 
Never more eminently, he added, than after what had passed. 

" Far be it from me," said Mrs. Wilfer, making deep proclama- 
tion from her corner, "to run counter to the feelings of a child of 
mine, and of a Youth," Mr. Sampson hardly seemed to like that 
word, " who is the object of her maiden preference. I may feel — 
nay, know — that I have been deluded and deceived. I may feel 
■ — nay, know — that I have been set aside and passed over. I may 
feel — nay, know — that after having so fur overcome my repug- 
nance towards Mr. and Mrs. Bottin as to receive them under this 
roof, and to consent to your daughter Bella's," here turning to lier 
husband, "residing under theirs, it were well if your daughter 
Bella," again turning to her husband, " had profited in a worldly 
point of view by a connection so distasteful, so disreputable. I may 
feel — nay, know — that in uniting herself to Mr. Rokesmith she 
has united herself to one who is, in spite of shallow sophistry, a 
Mendicant. And I may feel well assured that your daughter 
Bella," again turning to her husband, "does not exalt her family 
by becoming a Mendicant's bride. But I suppress what I feel, and 
say nothing of it." 

Mr. Sampson murmured that this was the sort of thing you might 
expect from one who had ever in her own family been an example and 
never an outrage. And ever more so (Mr. Sampson added, with 
some degree of obscurity), and never more so, than in and through 
what had passed. He must take the liberty of adding, that what 
was true of the mother, was true of the youngest daughter, and 
that he could never forget the touching feelings that the conduct 
of both had awakened within him. In conclusion, he did hope 
that there wasn't a man with a beating heart who was capable of 
something that remained undescribed, in consequence of Miss 
Lavinia's stopping him as he reeled in his speech. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 649 

"Therefore, R. W.," said Mrs. Wilfer, resuming her discourse 
and turning to her lord again, "let your daughter Bella come when 
she will, and she will be received. So," after a short pause, and 
an air of having taken medicine in it, " so will her husband." 

" And I beg. Pa," said Lavinia, " that you will not tell Bella 
what I have undergone. It can do no good, and it might cause 
her to reproach herself." 

"My dearest girl," urged Mr. Sampson, "she ought to know it." 

"No, George," said Lavinia, in a tone of resolute self-denial. 
" No, dearest George, let it be buried in oblivion." 

Mr. Sampson considered that "too noble." 

"Nothing is too noble, dearest George," returned Lavinia. 
" And, Pa, I hope you will be careful not to refer before Bella, if 
you can help it, to my engagement to George. It might seem like 
reminding her of her having cast herself away. And I hope. Pa, 
that you will think it equally right to avoid mentioning George's 
rising prospects when Bella is present. It might seem like taunting 
her with her own poor fortunes. Let me ever remember that I am 
her younger sister, and ever spare her painful contrasts, which 
could not but wound her sharply." 

Mr. Sampson expressed his belief that such was the demeanour 
of Angels. Miss Lavvy replied with solemnity, "No, dearest 
George, I am but too well aware that I am merely human." 

Mrs. Wilfer, for her part, still further improved the occasion by 
sitting with her eyes fastened on her husband, like two great black 
notes of interrogation, severely inquiring. Are you looking into 
your breast ? Do you deserve your blessings 1 Can you lay your 
hand upon your heart and say that you are worthy of so hysterical 
a daughter ? I do not ask you if you are worthy of such a wife 
— put Me out of the question — but are you sufficiently conscious 
of, and thankful for, the pervading moral grandeur of the family 
spectacle on which you are gazing 1 These inquiries proved very 
harassing to R. W., who, besides being a little disturbed by wine, 
was in perpetual terror of committing himself by the utterance of 
stray words that would betray his guilty foreknowledge. However, 
the scene being over, and — all things considered — well over, 
he sought refuge in a doze ; which gave his lady immense offence. 

" Can you think of your daughter Bella, and sleep ? " she disdain- 
fully inquired. 

To which he mildly answered, " Yes, I think I can, my dear." 

" Then," said Mrs. Wilfer, with solemn indignation, " I would 
recommend you, if you have a human feeling, to retire to bed." 

" Thank you, my dear," he replied ; "I think it is the best place 
for me." And with these unsympathetic words very gladly withdrew. 



650 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Within a few weeks afterwards, the Mendicant's bride (arm- 
in-arm with the Mendicant) came to tea, in fulfilment of an en- 
gagement made through the father. And the way in which the 
Mendicant's bride dashed at the unassailable position so consider- 
ately to be held by Miss Lawy, and scattered the whole of the 
works in all directions in a moment, was triumphant. 

"Dearest Ma," cried Bella, running into the room ^vith a radiant 
face, " how do you do, dearest Ma ? " And then embraced her joy- 
ously. "And Lawy darling, how do you do, and how's George 
Sampson, and how is he getting on, and when are you going to be 
married, and how rich are you going to grow % You must tell me 
all about it, Lavvy dear, immediately. John, love, kiss Ma and 
Lawy, and then we shall all be at home and comfortable." 

Mrs. Wilfer stared, but was helpless. Miss Lavinia stared, but 
was helpless. Apparently with no compunction, and assuredly 
with no ceremony, Bella tossed her bonnet away, and sat down to 
make the tea. 

" Dearest Ma and Lawy, you both take sugar, I know. And, 
Pa (you good little Pa), you don't take milk. John does. I didn't 
before I was married ; but I do now, because John does. John, 
dear, did you kiss Ma and Lawy ? Oh, you did ! Quite correct, 
John dear ; but I didn't see you do it, so I asked. Cut some bread 
and butter, John, that's a love. Ma likes it doubled. And now 
you must tell me, dearest Ma and Lawy, upon your words and hon- 
ours ! didn't you for a moment — just a moment — think I was a 
dreadful little wretch when I wrote to say I had run away ? " 

Before Mrs. Wilfer could wave her gloves, the Mendicant's bride 
in her merriest affectionate manner went on again. 

"I think it must have made you rather cross, dear Ma and 
Lavvy, and I know I deserved that you should be very cross. But 
you see I had been such a heedless, heartless creature, and had led 
you so to expect that I should marry for money, and so to make 
sure that I was incapable of marrying for love, that I thought you 
couldn't believe me. Because, you see, you didn't know how much 
of Good, Good, Good, I had learnt from John. Well ! So I was 
sly about it, and ashamed of what you supposed me to be, and 
fearful that we couldn't understand one another and might come to 
words, which we should all be sorry for afterwards, and so I said to 
John that if he liked to take me without any fuss, he might. And 
as he did like, I let him. And we were married at Greenwich 
church in the presence of nobody — except an unknown individual 
who dropped in," here her eyes sparkled more brightly, "and half 
a pensioner. And now, isn't it nice, dearest Ma and Lavvy, to 
know that no words have been said which any of us can be sorry 

/ 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 651 

for, and that we are all the best of friends at the plcasantest of 
teas ! " 

Having got up and kissed them again, she slipped back to her 
chair (after a loop on the road to squeeze her husband round the 
neck) and again went on. 

"And now you will naturally want to know, dearest Ma and 
Lavvy, how we live, and what we have got to live upon. Well ! 
And so we live on Blackheath, ^in the charm — ingest of dolls' 
houses, de — lightfuUy furnished, and we have a clever little ser- 
vant, who is de — cidedly pretty, and we are economical and orderly, 
and do everything by clockwork, and we have a hundred and fifty 
pounds a year, and we have all we want, and more. And lastly, if 
you would like to know in confidence, as perhaps you may, what is 
my opinion of my husband, my opinion is — that I almost love 
him ! " 

" And if you would like to know in confidence, as perhaps you 
may," said her husband, smiling, as he stood by her side, without 
her having detected his approach, "my opinion of my wife, my 

opinion is " But Bella started up, and put her hand upon 

his lips. 

" Stop, sir ! No, John dear ! Seriously ! Please not yet 
awhile ! I want to be something so much worthier than the doll 
in the doll's house." 

" My darling, are you not ? " 

" Not half, not a quarter, so much worthier as I hope you may 
some day find me ! Try me through some reverse, John — try me 
through some trial — and tell them after that, what you think of me." 

"I will,' my Life," said John. "I promise it." 

"That's my dear John. And you won't speak a word now; 
will you ? " 

" And I won't," said John, with a very expressive look of admira- 
tion around him, " speak a word now ! " 

She laid her laughing cheek upon his breast to thank him, and 
said, looking at the rest of them sideways out of her bright eyes : 
" I'll go further. Pa and Ma and Lavvy. John don't suspecf *it — 
he had no idea of it — but I quite love him ! " 

Even Mrs. Wilfer relaxed under the influence of her married 
daughter, and seemed in a majestic manner to imply remotely that 
if R. W. had been a more deserving object, she too might have 
condescended to come down from her pedestal for his beguilement. 
Miss Lavinia, on the other hand, had strong doubts of the policy 
of the course of treatment, and whether it might not spoil Mr. 
Sampson, if experimented on in the case of that young gentleman. 
R. W. himself was for his part convinced that he was father of 



652 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

one of the most charming of girls, and that Rokesmith was the 
most favoured of men ; which opinion, if propounded to him, 
Rokesmith would probably not have contested. 

The newly-married pair left early, so that they might walk at 
leisure to their starting-place from London, for Greenwich. At first 
they were very cheerful and talked much ; but after a while, Bella 
fancied that her husband was turning somewhat thoughtful. So 
she asked him : 

" John dear, what's the matter ? " 

" Matter, my love 1 " 

" Won't you tell me," said Bella, looking up into his face, " what 
you are thinking of?" 

" There's not much in the thought, my soul. I was thinking 
whether you wouldn't like me to be rich 1 " 

" You rich, John ? " repeated Bella, shrinking a little. 

" I mean, really rich. Say, as rich as Mr. Botfin. You would 
like that?" 

" I should be almost afraid to try, John dear. Was he much 
the better for his wealth ? Was I much the better for the little 
part I once had in it ? " 

" But all people are not the worse for riches, my own." 

" Most people 1 " Bella musingly suggested with raised eyebrows. 

" Nor even most people, it may be hoped. If you were rich, 
for instance, you would have a great power of doing good to others." 

"Yes, sir, for instance," Bella playfully rejoined; "but should 
I exercise the power, for instance 1 And again, sir, for instance ; 
should I, at the same time, have a great power of doing harm to 
myself?" 

Laughing and pressing her arm, he retorted : " But still, again 
for instance ; would you exercise that power ? " 

" I don't know," said Bella, thoughtfully shaking her head. " I 
hope not. I think not. But it's so easy to hope not, and think 
not, without the riches." 

"Why don't you say, my darhng — instead of that phrase — 
being poor ? " he asked, looking earnestly at her. 

" Why don't I say, being poor ? Because I am not poor. Dear 
John, it's not possible that you suppose I think we are poor ? " 

" I do, my love." 

" Oh John ! " 

" Understand me, sweetheart. I know that I am rich beyond 
all wealth in having you ; but I think of you, and think for you. 
In such a dress as you are wearing now, you first charmed me, and 
in no dress could you ever look, to my thinking, more graceful or 
more beautiful. But you have admired many finer dresses this very 
day ; and is it not natural that I wish I could give them to you ? " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 653 

" It's very nice that you should wish it, John. It brings these 
tears of grateful pleasure into my eyes, to hear you say so with 
such tenderness. But I don't want them." 

"Again," he pursued, "we are now walking through the muddy 
streets. I love those pretty feet so dearly that I feel as if I could 
not bear the dirt to soil the sole of your shoe. Is it not natural 
that I wish you could ride in a carriage 1 " 

"It's very nice," said Bella, glancing downward at the feet in 
question, " to know that you admire them so much, John dear, 
and since you do, I am sorry that these shoes are a full size too 
large. But I don't want a carriage, believe me." 

" You would like one, if you could have one, Bella ? " 

" I shouldn't like it for its own sake, half so well as such a wish 
for it. Dear John, your wishes are as real to me as the wishes in 
the Fairy story, that were all fulfilled as soon as spoken. Wish 
me everything that you can wish for the woman you dearly love, 
and I have as good as got it, John. I have better than got it, 
John ! " 

They were not the less happy for such talk, and home was not 
the less home for coming after it. Bella was fast developing a 
perfect genius for home. All the loves and graces seemed (her 
husband thought) to have taken domestic service with her, and to 
help her to make home engaging. 

Her married life glided happily on. She was all alone all day, 
for, after an early breakfast her husband repaired every morning 
to the City, and did not return until their late dinner hour. He 
was " in a China house," he explained to Bella : which she found 
quite satisfactory, without pursuing the China house into minuter 
details than a wholesale vision of tea, rice, odd-smelling silks, 
carved boxes, and tight-eyed people in more than double-soled 
shoes, with their pigtails pulling their heads of hair off, painted on 
transparent porcelain. She always walked with her husband to the 
railroad, and was always there again to meet him; her old coquet- 
tish ways a little sobered down (but not much), and her dress as 
daintily managed as if she managed nothing else. But, John gone 
to business and Bella returned home, the dress would be laid aside, 
trim little wrappers and aprons would be substituted, and Bella, 
putting back her hair with both hands, as if she were making the 
most business-like arrangements for going dramatically distracted, 
would enter on the household affairs of the day. Such weighing 
and mixing and chopping and grating, such dusting and washing 
and polishing, such snipping and weeding and trowelling and other 
small gardening, such making and mending and folding and airing, 
such diverse arrangements, and above all such severe study ! For 



654 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Mrs. J. R., who had never been wont to do too much at home as 
Miss B. W., was under the constant necessity of referring for 
advice and support to a sage volume entitled The Complete British 
Family Housewife, which she would sit consulting, with her elbows 
on the table and her temples on her hands, like some perplexed 
enchantress poring over the Black Art. This, principally because 
the Complete British Housewife, however sound a Briton at heart, 
was by no means an expert Briton at expressing herself with clear- 
ness in the British tongue, and sometimes might have issued her 
directions to equal purpose in the Kamskatchan language. In any 
crisis of this nature, Bella would suddenly exclaim aloud, " Oh, 
you ridiculous old thing, what do you mean by that ? You must 
have been drinking ! " And having made this marginal note, 
would try the Housewife again, with all her dimples screwed into 
an expression of profound research. 

There was likewise a coolness on the part of the British House- 
wife, which Mrs. John Rokesmith found highly exasperating. She 
would say, " Take a salamander," as if a general should command 
a private to catch a Tartar. Or, she would casually issue the 
order, " Throw in a handful — " of something entirely unattainable. 
In these, the Housewife's most glaring moments of unreason, Bella 
would shut her up and knock her on the table, apostrophising her 
with the compliment, " Oh you are a stupid old donkey ! Where 
am I to get it, do you think ? " 

Another branch of study claimed the attention of Mrs. John 
Rokesmith for a regular period every day. This was the master- 
ing of the newspaper, so that she might be close up with John on 
general topics when John came home. In her desire to be in all 
things his companion, she would have set herself with equal zeal 
to master Algebra, or Euclid, if he had divided his soul between her 
and either. Wonderful was the way in which she would store up 
the City Intelligence, and beamingly shed it upon John in the 
course of the evening, incidentally mentioning the commodities that 
were looking up in the markets, and how much gold had been taken 
to the Bank, and trying to look wise and serious over it until she 
would laugh at herself most charmingly, and would say, kissing 
him : " It all comes of my love, John dear." 

For a City man, John certainly did appear to care as little as 
might be for the looking up or looking down of things, as well as 
for the gold that got taken to the Bank. But he cared, beyond 
all expression, for his wife, as a Hiost precious and sweet commodity 
that was always looking up, and that never was worth less than 
all the gold in the world. And she, being inspired by her affec- 
tion, and having a quick wit and a fine ready instinct, made amaz- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 655 

iug progress in her domestic efficiency, though, as an endearing 
creature, she made no progress at all. This was her husband's 
verdict, and he justified it by telling her that she had begun her 
married life as the most endearing creature that could possibly be. 

" And you have such a cheerful simit ! " he said, fondly. " You 
are like a bright light in the house." 

"Ami truly, John?" 

"Are you truly? Yes, indeed. Only much more, and much 
better." 

"Do you know, John dear," said Bella, taking him by a button 
of his coat, " that I sometimes, at odd moments — don't laugh, 
John, please." 

Nothing should induce John to do it, when she asked him not to 
do it. 

" — That I sometimes think, John, I feel a little serious." 

" Are you too much alone, my darling ? " 

" Oh dear, no, John ! The time is so short that I have not a 
moment too much in the week." 

" Why serious, my life, then ? When serious ? " 

" When I laugh, I think," said Bella, laughing as she laid her 
head upon his shoulder. "You wouldn't believe, sir, that I feel 
serious now? But I do." And she laughed again, and something 
glistened in her eyes. 

"Would you like to be rich, pet? " he asked her coaxingly. 

"Rich, John ! How can you ask such goose's questions?" 

" Do you regret anything, my love ? " 

" Regret anything ? No ! " Bella confidently answered. But 
then, suddenly changing, she said, between laughing and glistening : 
"Oh yes, I do, though. I regret Mrs. Boffin." 

" I, too, regret that separation very much. But perhaps it is 
only temporary. Perhaps things may so fall out, as that you may 
sometimes see her again — as that we may sometimes see her 
again." Bella might be very anxious on the subject, but she 
scarcely seemed so at the moment. With an absent air, she was 
investigating that button on her husband's coat, when Pa came 
in to spend the evening. 

Pa had his special chair and his special corner reserved for him 
on all occasions, and — without disparagement of his domestic joys 
— was far happier there tlian anywhere. It was always pleasantly 
droll to see Pa and Bella together ; but on this present evening 
her husband thought her more than usually fantastic with him. 

"You are a veiy good little boy," said Bella, "to come unex- 
pectedly as soon as you could get out of school. And how have 
they used you at school to-day, you dear?" 



656 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Well, my pet," replied the cherub, smiling and rubbing his 
hands, as she sat him down in his chair, "I attend two schools. 
There's the Mincing Lane establishment, and there's your mother's 
Academy. Which might you mean, my dear ? " 

" Both," said Bella. 

"Both, eh? Why, to say the truth, both have taken a little 
out of me to-day, my dear, but that was to be expected. There's 
no royal road to learning ; and what is life but learning ? " 

"And what do you do with yourself when you have got your 
learning by heart, you silly child 1 " 

"Why then, my dear," said the cherub, after a little consider- 
ation, "I suppose I die." 

" You are a very bad boy," retorted Bella, " to talk about dismal 
things and be out of spirits." 

" My Bella," rejoined her father, "I am not out of spirits. I 
am as gay as a lark." Which his face confirmed. 

" Then if you are sure and certain it's not you, I suppose it must 
be I," said Bella; " so I won't do so any more. John dear, we must 
give this little fellow his supper, you know." 

"Of course we must, my darhng." 

"He has been grubbing and grubbing at school," said Bella, 
looking at her father's hand and lightly slapping it, " till he's not 
fit to be seen. Oh what a grubby child ! " 

"Indeed, my dear," said her father, "I was going to ask 
to be allowed to wash my hands, only you find me out so 
soon." 

" Come here, sir ! " cried Bella, taking him by the front of his 
coat, "come here and be washed directly. You are not to be 
trusted to do it for yourself. Come here, sir ! " 

The cherub, to his genial amusement, was accordingly conducted 
to a little washing-room, where Bella soaped his face and rubbed 
his face, and soaped his hands and rubbed his hands, and splashed 
him and rinsed him and towelled him, until he was as red as beet- 
root, even to his very ears : " Now you must be brushed and 
combed, sir," said Bella, busily. "Hold the light, John. Shut 
your eyes, sir, and let me take hold of your chin. Be good directly, 
and do as you are told ! " 

Her father being more than willing to obey, she dressed his hair 
in her most elaborate manner, brushing it out straight, parting it, 
winding it over her fingers, sticking it up on end, and constantly 
falling back on John to get a good look at the effect of it. Who 
always received her on his disengaged arm, and detained her, while 
the patient cherub stood waiting to be finished. 

" There ! " said Bella, when she had at last completed the final 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 657 

touches. " Now, you are something like a genteel boy ! Put your 
jacket on, and come and have your supper." 

The cherub investing himself with his coat was led back to his 
corner — where, but for having no egotism in his pleasant nature, 
he would have answered well enough for that radiant though self- 
sufficient boy, Jack Horner — Bella with her own hands laid a cloth 
for him, and brought him his supper on a tray. " Stop a moment," 
said she, " we must keep his little clothes clean ; " and tied a nap- 
kin under his chin, in a very methodical manner. 

While he took his supper, Bella sat by him, sometimes admon- 
ishing him to hold his fork by the handle, like a polite child, and 
at other times carving for him, or pouring out his drink. Fantas- 
tic as it all was, and accustomed as she ever had been to make a 
plaything of her good father, ever delighted that she should put 
him to that account, still there was an occasional something on 
Bella's part that was new. It could not be said that she was less 
playful, whimsical, or natural, than she always had been; but it 
seemed, her husband thought, as if there were some rather graver 
reason than he had supposed for what she had so lately said, and 
as if, throughout all this, there were glimpses of an underlying 
seriousness. 

It was a circumstance in support of this view of the case, that 
when she had lighted her father's pipe, and mixed him his glass of 
grog, she sat down on a stool between her father and her husband, 
leaning her arm upon the latter, and was very quiet. So quiet, 
that when her father rose to take his leave, she looked round with 
a start, as if she had forgotten his being there. 

" You go a little way with Pa, John ? " 

" Yes, my dear. Do you ? " 

" I have not written to Lizzie Hexam since I wrote and told her 
that I really had a lover — a whole one. I have often thought I 
would like to tell her how right she was when she pretended to 
read in the live coals that I would go through fire and water for 
him. I am in the humour to tell her so to-night, John, and I'll 
stay at home and do it." 

"You are tired." 

"Not at all tired, John dear, but in the humour to write to 
Lizzie. Good night, dear Pa. Good night, you dear, good, gentle 
Pa!" 

Left to herself, she sat down to write, and wrote Lizzie a long 
letter. She had but completed it and read it over, when her hus- 
band came back. "You are just in time, sir," said Bella; "I am 
going to give you your first curtain lecture. It shall be a parlour- 
curtain lecture. You shall take this chair of mine when I have 

2u 



658 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

folded my letter, and I will take the stool (though you ought to 
take it, I can tell you, sir, if it's the stool of repentance), and 
you'll soon find yourself taken to task soundly." 

Her letter folded, sealed, and directed, and her pen wiped, and 
her middle finger ^^dped, and her desk locked up and put away, 
and these transactions performed with an air of severe business 
sedateness, which the Complete British Housewife might have 
assumed, and certainly would not have rounded off and broken 
down with a musical laugh, as Bella did : she placed her husband in 
his chair, and placed herself upon her stool. 

" Now, sir ! To begin at the beginning. What is your name 1 " 

A question more decidedly rushing at the secret he was keeping 
from her, could not have astounded him. But he kept his counte- 
nance and his secret, and answered, " John Rokesmith, my dear." 

" Good boy ! Who gave you that name ? " 

With a returning suspicion that something might have betrayed 
him to her, he answered, interrogatively, " My godfathers and my 
godmothers, dear love ? " 

" Pretty good ! " said Bella. " Not goodest good, because you 
hesitate about it. However, as you know your Catechism, fairly, 
so far, I'll let you off the rest. Now, I am going to examine you 
out of my own head. John dear, why did you go back, this even- 
ing, to the question you once asked me before — would I like to 
be rich r' 

Again, his secret ! He looked down at her as she looked up at 
him, with her hands folded on his knee, and it was as nearly told 
as ever secret was. 

Irving no reply ready, he could do no better than embrace her. 

"In short, dear John," said Bella, "this is the topic of my 
lecture : I want nothing on earth, and I want you to believe it." 

" If that's all, the lecture may be considered over, for I do." 

"It's not all, John dear," Bella hesitated. "It's only Firstly. 
There's a dreadful Secondly, and a dreadful Thirdly to come — as 
I used to say to myself in sermon-time when I was a very smaU- 
sized sinner at church." 

" Let them come, my dearest." 

" Are you sure, John dear ; are you absolutely certain in your 
innermost heart of hearts ? " 

"Which is not in my keeping," he rejoined. 

" No, John, but the key is. — Are you absolutely certain that 
down at the bottom of that heart of hearts, which you have given 
to me as I have given mine to you, tliere is no remembrance that 
I was once very mercenary ? " 

" Why, if there w^re no remembrance in me of the time you 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 659 

speak of," lie softly asked her with his lips to hers, "could I love 
you quite as well as I do ; could I have in the Calendar of my life 
the brightest of its days ; could I, whenever I look at your dear 
face, or hear your dear voice, see and hear my noble champion "? 
It can never have been that which made you serious, darling 1 " 

" No, John, it wasn't that, and still less was it Mrs. Boffin, 
though I love her. Wait a moment, and I'll go on with the lect- 
ure. Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so 
delicious, John dear, to cry for joy." 

She did so on his neck, and, still chnging there, laughed a little 
when she said, " I think I am ready now for Thirdly, John." 

"/am ready for Thirdly," said John, " whatever it is." 

"I believe, John," pursued Bella, "that you believe that I 
believe " 

" My dear child," cried her husband gaily, "what a quantity of 
believing ! " 

" Isn't there ? " said Bella, with another laugh. " I never knew 
such a quantity ! It's like verbs in an exercise. But I can't get 
on with less believing. I'll try again. I believe, dear John, that 
you believe that I believe that we have as much money as we 
require, and that we want for nothing." 

" It is strictly true, Bella." 

"But if our money should by any means be rendered not so 
much — if we had to stint ourselves a little in purchases that we 
can afford to make now — would you still have the same confidence 
in my being quite contented, John 1 " 

" Precisely the same confidence, my soul." 

" Thank you, John dear, thousands upon thousands of times. 
And I may take it for granted, no doubt," with a little faltering, 
"that you would be quite as contented yourself, John? But, yes, 
I know I may. For, knowing that I should be so, how surely I 
may know that you would be so ; you who are so much stronger, 
and firmer, and more reasonable and more generous, than I am." 

" Hush ! " said her husband, " I must not hear that. You are 
all wrong there, though othermse as right as can be. And now I 
am brought to a little piece of news, my dearest, that I might have 
told you earlier in the evening. I have strong reason for confi- 
dently believing that we shall never be in the receipt of a smaller 
income than our present income." 

She might have shown herself more interested in the intelligence ; 
but she had returned to the investigation of the coat-button that 
had engaged her attention a few hours before, and scarcely seemed 
to heed what he said. 

"And now we have got to the bottom of it at last," cried 



660 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

her husband, rallying her, " and this is the thing that made you 
serious 1 " 

" No, dear," said Bella, twisting the button and shaking her head, 
" it wasn't this." 

"Why then. Lord bless this little wife of mine, there's a 
Fourthly ! " exclaimed John. 

"This worried me a little, and so did Secondly," said Bella, 
occupied with the button, "but it was quite another sort of seri- 
ousness — a much deeper and quieter sort of seriousness — that I 
spoke of, John dear." 

As he bent his face to hers, she raised hers to meet it, and laid 
her little right hand on his eyes, and kept it there. 

"Do you remember, John, on the day we were married. Pa's 
speaking of the ships that might be sailing towards us from the 
unknown seas ? " 

" Perfectly, my darling ! " 

" I think . . . among them . . . there is a ship upon the ocean 
. . . bringing ... to you and me ... a little baby, John." 



CHAPTER VI. 

A CRY FOR HELP. 

The Paper Mill had stopped work for the night, and the paths 
and roads in its neighbourhood were sprinkled with clusters of 
people going home from their day's labour in it. There were men, 
women, and children in the groups, and there was no want of lively 
colour to flutter in the gentle evening wind. The mingling of 
various voices and the sound of laughter made a cheerful impression 
upon the ear, analogous to that of the fluttering colours upon the 
eye. Into the sheet of water reflecting the flushed sky in the fore- 
ground of the living picture, a knot of urchins were casting stones, 
and watching the expansion of the rippling circles. So, in the rosy 
evening, one might watch the ever-widening beauty of the landscape 
— beyond the newly-released workers wending home — beyond the 
silver river — beyond the deep green fields of corn, so prosper- 
ing, that the loiterers in their narrow threads of pathway seemed 
to float immersed breast-high — beyond the hedgerows and the 
clumps of trees — beyond the windmills on the ridge — away to 
where the sky appeared to meet the earth, as if there were no im- 
mensity of space between mankind and Heaven. 

It was a Saturday evening, and at such a time the village dogs, 
always much more interested in the doings of humanity than in thq 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 661 

affairs of their own species, were particularly active. At the gen- 
eral shop, at the butcher's and at the public-house, they evinced 
an inquiring spirit never to be satiated. Their especial interest in 
the public-house would seem to imply some latent rakishness in 
the canine character ; for little was eaten there, and they, having 
no taste for beer or tobacco (Mrs. Hubbard's dog is said to have 
smoked, but proof is wanting), could only have been attracted by 
sympathy with loose convivial habits. Moreover, a most wretched 
fiddle played within; a fiddle so unutterably vile, that one lean long- 
bodied cur, with a better ear than the rest, found himself under 
compulsion at intervals to go round the corner and howl. Yet, 
even he returned to the public-house on each occasion with the 
tenacity of a confirmed drunkard. 

Fearful to relate, there was even a sort of little Fair in the 
village. Some despairing gingerbread that had been vainly trying 
to dispose of itself all over the country, and had cast a quantity of 
dust upon its head in its mortification, again appealed to the public 
from an infirm booth. So did a heap of nuts, long, long exiled from 
Barcelona, and yet speaking English so indifferently as to call four- 
teen of themselves a pint. A Peep-show which had originally 
started with the Battle of Waterloo, and had since made it every 
other battle of later date by altering the Duke of Wellington's nose, 
tempted the student of illustrated history. A Fat Lady, perhaps, 
in part sustained upon postponed pork, her professional associate 
being a Learned Pig, displayed her life-size picture in a low dress 
as she appeared when presented at Court, several yards round. 
All this was a vicious spectacle as any poor idea of amusement on 
the part of the rougher hewers of wood and drawers of water in 
this land of England ever is and shall be. They must not vary 
the rheumatism with amusement. They may vary it with fever 
and ague, or with as many rheumatic variations as they have joints ; 
but positively not with entertainment after their own manner. 

The various sounds arising from this scene of depravity, and float- 
ing away into the still evening air, made the evening, at any point 
which they just reached fitfully, mellowed by the distance, more 
still by contrast. Such was the stillness of the evening to Eugene 
Wrayburn, as he walked by the river with his hands behind him. 

He walked slowly, and with the measured step and preoccupied 
air of one who was waiting. He walked between the two points, 
an osier-bed at this end and some floating lilies at that, and at each 
point stopped and looked expectantly in one direction. 

" It is very quiet," said he. 

It was very quiet. Some sheep were grazing on the grass by the 
river-side, and it seemed to him that he had never before heard the 



662 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

crisp, tearing sound \vith which they cropped it. He stopped idly, 
and looked at them. 

" You are stupid enough, I suppose. But if you are clever enough 
to get through life tolerably to your satisfaction, you have got the 
better of me, Man as I am, and Mutton as you are ! " 

A rustle in a field beyond the hedge attracted his attention. 
" What's here to do ? " he asked himself, leisurely going towards 
the gate and looking over. " No jealous paper-miller ? No pleas- 
ures of the chase in this part of the country? Mostly fishing 
hereabouts ! " 

The field had been newly mown, and there were yet the marks 
of the scythe on the yellow-green ground, and the track of wheels 
where the hay had been carried. Following the tracks with his 
eyes, the view closed with the new hayrick in a corner. 

Now, if he had gone on to the hayrick, and gone round it ? 
But, say that the event was to be, as the event fell out, and how 
idle are such suppositions ! Besides, if he had gone ; what is there 
of warning in a bargeman lying on his face ? 

"A bird flying to the hedge," was all he thought about it; and 
came back, and resumed his walk. 

"If I had not a reliance on her being truthful," said Eugene, 
after taking some half-dozen turns, " I should begin to think she 
had given me the slip for the second time. But she promised, and 
she is a girl of her word." 

Turning again at the water-lilies, he saw her coming, and 
advanced to meet her. 

" I was saying to myself, Lizzie, that you were sure to come, 
though you were late." 

" I had to linger through the village as if I had no object before 
me, and I had to speak to several people in passing along, Mr. 
Wrayburn." 

" Are the lads of the village — and the ladies — such scandal- 
mongers ? " he asked, as he took her hand and drew it through his 
arm. 

She submitted to walk slowly on, with downcast eyes. He put 
her hand to his lips, and she quietly drew it away. 

" Will you walk beside me, Mr. Wrayburn, and not touch me 1 " 
For, his arm was already stealing round her waist. 

She stopped again, and gave liim an earnest supplicating look. 
" Well, Lizzie, well ! " said he, in an easy way, though ill at ease 
with himself, " don't be unhappy, don't be reproachful," 

" I cannot help being unhappy, but I do not mean to be rcproacli- 
ful. Mr. Wrayburn, I implore you to go away from this neigh-- 
bourhood to-morrow morning." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 663 

"Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie!" he remonstrated. "As well be re- 
proachful as wholly unreasonable. I can't go away." 

"Why not?" 

"Faith !" said Eugene in his airily candid manner. "Because 
you won't let me. Mind ! I don't mean to be reproachful either. 
I don't complain that you design to keep me here. But you do it, 
you do it," 

" Will you walk beside me, and not touch me," for his arm was 
coming about her again; "while I speak to you very seriously, 
Mr. Wrayburn 1 " 

"I will do anything within the limits of possibility, for you, 
Lizzie," he answered with pleasant gaiety as he folded his arms. 
" See here ! Napoleon Buonaparte at St. Helena." 

" When you spoke to me as I came from the Mill the night be- 
fore last," said Lizzie, fixing her eyes upon him with a look of sup- 
plication which troubled his better nature, "you told me that you 
were much surprised to see me, and that you were on a solitary 
fishing excursion. Was it true 1 " 

"It was not," rephed Eugene composedly, "in the least true. 
I came here because I had information that I should find you here." 

" Can you imagine why I left London, Mr. Wrayburn 1 " 

" I am afraid, Lizzie," he openly answered, " that you left London 
to get rid of me. It is not flattering to my self-love, but I am 
afraid you did." 

"I did." 

" How could you be so cruel 1 " 

"Oh, Mr. Wrayburn," she answered, suddenly breaking into 
tears, "is the cruelty on my side? Oh, Mr. Wrayburn, Mr. Wray- 
burn, is there no cruelty in your being here to-night ? " 

" In the name of all that's good — and that is not conjuring you 
in my own name — for Heaven knows I am not good " — said 
Eugene, " don't be distressed ! " 

" What else can I be, when I know the distance and the differ- 
ence between us ? What else can I be, when to tell me why you 
came here, is to put me to shame ! " said Lizzie, covering her face. 

He looked at her with a real sentiment of remorseful tenderness 
and pity. It was not strong enough to impel him to sacrifice 
himself and spare her, but it was a strong emotion. 

" Lizzie ! I never thought before, that there was a woman in 
the world who could affect me so much by saying so little. But 
don't be hard in your construction of me. You don't know what 
my state of mind towards you is. You don't know how you haunt 
me and bewilder me. You don't know how^ the cursed carelessness 
that is over-ofiicious in helping me at every other turning of my 



664 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

life, won't help me here. You have struck it dead, I think, and I 
sometimes almost wish you had struck me dead along with it." 

She had not been prepared for such passionate expressions, and 
they awakened some natural sparks of feminine pride and joy in 
her breast. To consider, wrong as he was, that he could care so 
much for her, and that she had the power to move him so ! 

" It grieves you to see me distressed, Mr. Wrayburn ; it grieves 
me to see you distressed. I don't reproach you. Indeed I don't 
reproach you. You have not felt this as I feel it, being so differ- 
ent from me, and beginning from another point of view. You have 
not thought. But I entreat you to think now, think now ! " 

"What am I to think of? " asked Eugene bitterly. 

" Think of me." 

" Tell me how not to think of you, Lizzie, and you'll change me 
altogether." 

" I don't mean in that way. Think of me, as belonging to an- 
other station, and quite cut off from you in honour. Remember 
that I have no protector near me, unless I have one in your noble 
heart. Respect my good name. If you feel towards me, in one 
particular, as you might if I was a lady, give me the full claims of 
a lady upon your generous behaviour. I am removed from you and 
your family by being a working girl. How true a gentleman to 
be as considerate of me as if I was removed by being a Queen ! " 

He would have been base indeed to have stood untouched by 
her appeal. His face expressed contrition and indecision as he 
asked : 

" Have I injured you so much, Lizzie ? " 

"No, no. You may set me quite right. I don't speak of the 
past, Mr. Wrayburn, but of the present and the future. Are we 
not here now, because through two days you have followed me so 
closely where there are so many eyes to see you, that I consented 
to this appointment as an escape 1 " 

"Again, not very flattering to my self-love," said Eugene mood- 
ily; "but yes. Yes. Yes." 

" Then I beseech you, Mr. Wrayburn, I beg and pray you, leave 
this neighbourhood. If you do not, consider to what you will 
drive me." 

He did consider within himself for a moment or two, and then 
retorted, "Drive you? To what shall I drive you, Lizzie?" 

" You will drive me away. I live here peacefully and respected, 
and I am well employed here. You will force me to quit this 
place as I quitted London, and — by following me again — will 
force me to quit the next place in which I may find refuge, as 
I quitted this." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 665 

" Are you so determined, Lizzie — forgive the word I am going 
to use, for its literal truth — to fly from a lover ? " 

"I am so determined," she answered resolutely, though trem- 
bling, "to fly from such a lover. There was a poor woman died 
here but a little while ago, scores of years older than I am, whom 
I found by chance, lying on the wet earth. You may have heard 
some account of her 1 " 

" I think I have," he answered, " if her name was Higden." 

"Her name was Higden. Though she was so weak and old, 
she kept true to one purpose to the very last. Even at the very 
last, she made me promise that her purpose should be kept to, 
after she was dead, so settled was her determination. What she 
did, I can do. Mr. Wrayburn, if I believed — but I do not believe 
— that you could be so cruel to me as to drive me from place to 
place to wear me out, you should drive me to death and not do it." 

He looked full at her handsome face, and in his own handsome 
face there was a light of blended admiration, anger, and reproach, 
which she — who loved him so in secret — whose heart had long 
been so full, and he the cause of its overflowing — drooped before. 
She tried hard to retain her firmness, but he saw it melting away 
under his eyes. In the moment of its dissolution, and of his first 
full knowledge of this influence upon her, she dropped, and he 
caught her on his arm. 

" Lizzie ! Rest so a moment. Answer what I ask you. If I 
had not been what you call removed from you and cut off from 
you, would you have made this appeal to me to leave you ? " 

"I don't know, I don't know. Don't ask me, Mr. Wrayburn. 
Let me go back." 

" I swear to you, Lizzie, you shall go directly. I swear to you, 
you shall go alone. I'll not accompany you, I'll not follow you, if 
you will reply." 

"How can I, Mr. Wrayburn? How can I tell you what I 
should have done, if you had not been what you are ? " 

" If I had not been what you make me out to be," he struck in, 
skilfully changing the form of words, " would you still have hated 
me?" 

"0 Mr. Wrayburn," she replied appealingly, and weeping, "you 
know me better than to think I do ! " 

" If I had not been what you make me out to be, Lizzie, would 
you still have been indifierent to me ? " 

"0 Mr. Wrayburn," she answered as before, "you know me 
better than that too ! " 

There was something in the attitude of her whole figiu'e as he 
supported it, and she hung her head, which besought him to be 



666 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

merciful and not force her to disclose her heart. He was not 
merciful with her, and he made her do it. 

"If I know you better than quite to believe (unfortunate dog 
though I am !) that you hate me, or even that you are wholly 
indifferent to me, Lizzie, let me know so much more from yourself 
before we separate. Let me know how you would have dealt with 
me if you had regarded me as being what you would have consid- 
ered on equal terms with you." 

" It is impossible, Mr. Wrayburn. How can I think of you as 
being on equal terms with me? If my mind could put you on 
equal terms with me, you could not be yourself. How could I 
remember, then, the night when I first saw you, and when I went 
out of the room because you looked at me so attentively 1 Or, the 
night that passed into the morning when you broke to me that my 
father was dead 1 Or, the nights when you used to come to see 
me at my next home 1 Or, your having known how uninstructed 
I was, and having caused me to be taught better? Or, my having 
so looked up to you and wondered at you, and at first thought you 
so good to be at all mindful of me 1 " 

" Only ' at first ' tliought me so good, Lizzie ? What did you 
think me after ' at first ' ? So bad ?" 

"I don't say that. I don't mean that. But after the first 
wonder and pleasure of being noticed by one so different from any 
one who had ever spoken to me, I began to feel that it might 
have been better if I had never seen you." 

"Why?" 

"Because you ?6'ere so different," she answered in a lower voice. 
" Because it was so endless, so hopeless. Spare me." 

" Did you think for me at all, Lizzie ? " he asked, as if he were 
a little stung. 

" Not much, Mr. Wrayburn. Not much until to-night." 

" Will you tell me why ? " 

" I never supposed until to-night that you needed to be thought 
for. But if you do need to be ; if you do truly feel at heart that 
you have indeed been towards me what you have called yourself 
to-night, and that there is nothing for us in this life but separa- 
tion ; then Heaven help you, and Heaven bless you ! " 

The purity with which in these words she expressed something 
of her own love and her own suffering, made a deep impression on 
him for the passing time. He held her, almost as if she were 
sanctified to him by death, and kissed her, once, almost as he 
might have kissed tlie dead. 

" I promised that I would not accompany you, nor follow you. 
Shall I keep you in view ? You have been agitated, and it's grow- 
ing dark." 



,^t.te^^;i«i| 




668 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"I am iis-ed to be out alone at this hour, and I entreat you not 
to do so." 

" I promise. I can bring myself to promise nothing more to- 
night, Lizzie, except that I will try what I can do." 

"There is but one means, Mr. Wrayburn, of sparing yourself 
and of sparing me, every way. Leave this neighbourhood to-mor- 
row morning." 

" I will try." 

As he spoke the words in a grave voice, she put her hand in his, 
removed it, and went away by the river-side. 

" Now, could Mortimer believe this 1 " murmured Eugene, still 
remaining, after a while, where she had left him. " Can I even 
believe it myself?" 

He referred to the circumstance that there were tears upon his 
hand, as he stood covering his eyes. " A most ridiculous position 
this, to be found out in ! " was his next thought. And his next 
struck its root in a little rising resentment against the cause of the 
tears. 

"Yet I have gained a wonderful power over her, too, let her be 
as much in earnest as she will ! " 

The reflection brought back the yielding of her face and form as 
she had drooped under his gaze. Contemplating the reproduction, 
he seemed to see, for the second time, in the appeal and in the con- 
fession of weakness, a little fear. 

"And she loves me. And so earnest a character must be very 
earnest in that passion. She cannot choose for herself to be strong 
in this fancy, wavering in that, and weak in the other. She must 
go through with her nature, as I must go through with mine. If 
mine exacts its pains and penalties all round, so must hers, I sup- 
pose." 

Pursuing the inquiry into his own nature, he thought, " Now, if 
I married her. If, outfacing the absurdity of the situation in cor- 
respondence with M. R. F., I astonished M. R. F. to the utmost 
extent of his respected powers, by informing liim that I had mar- 
ried her, how would M. R. F. reason with the legal mind ? ' You 
wouldn't marry for some money and some station, because you were 
frightfully likely to become bored. Are you less frightfully likely 
to become bored, marrying for no money and no station ? Are you 
sure of yourself? ' Legal mind, in spite of forensic protestations, 
must secretly admit, ' Good reasoning on the part of M. R. F. JVot 
sure of myself.' " 

In the very act of calling this tone of levity to his aid, he felt it 
to be profligate and worthless, and asserted her against it. 

"And yet," said Eugene, "I should like to see the fellow (Mor- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 669 

timer excepted) who would undertake to tell me that this was not 
a real sentiment on my part, won out of me by her beauty and her 
worth, in spite of myself, and that I would not be true to her, I 
should particularly like to see the fellow to-night who would tell 
me so, or who would tell me anything that could be construed to 
her disadvantage ; for I am wearily out of sorts with one Wray- 
burn who cuts a sorry figure, and I would far rather be out of sorts 
with somebody else. ' Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad busi- 
ness.' Ah ! So go the Mortimer Lightwood bells, and they sound 
melancholy to-night." 

Strolling on, he thought of something else to take himself to 
task for. "Where is the analogy, Brute Beast," he said impa- 
tiently, " between a woman whom your father coolly finds out for 
you and a woman whom you have found out for yourself, and have 
ever drifted after with more and more of constancy since you first 
set eyes upon her ? Ass ! Can you reason no better than that ? " 

But, again he subsided into a reminiscence of his first full knowl- 
edge of his power just now, and of her disclosure of her heart. To 
try no more to go away, and to try her again, was the reckless con- 
clusion it turned uppermost. And yet again, "Eugene, Eugene, 
Eugene, this is a bad business ! " And, " I wish I could stop the 
Lightwood peal, for it sounds like a knell." 

Looking above, he found that the young moon was up, and that 
the stars were beginning to shine in the sky from which the tones 
of red and yellow were flickering out, in favour of the calm blue of 
a summer night. He was still by the river-side. Turning sud- 
denly, he met a man, so close upon him that Eugene, surprised, 
stepped back, to avoid a collision. The man carried something 
over his shoulder which might have been a broken oar, or spar, or 
bar, and took no notice of him, but passed on. 

"Halloa, friend!" said Eugene, calling after him, "are you 
blind?" 

The man made no reply, but went his way. 

Eugene Wrayburn went the opposite way, with his hands behind 
him and his purpose in his thoughts. He passed the sheep, and 
passed the gate, and came within hearing of the village sounds, 
and came to the bridge. The inn where he stayed, like the village 
and the mill, was not across the river, but on that side of the stream 
on which he walked. However, knowing the rushy bank and the 
back-water on the other side to be a retired place, and feeling out 
of humour for noise or company, he crossed the bridge, and saun- 
tered on : looking up at the stars as they seemed one by one to be 
kindled in the sky, and looking down at the river as the same stars 
seemed to be kindled deep in the water. A landing-place over-shad- 



670 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

owed by a willow, and a pleasure-boat lying moored there among 
some stakes, caught his eye as he passed along. The spot was in 
such dark shadow, that he paused to make out what was there, and 
then passed on again. 

The rippling of the river seemed to cause a correspondent stir in 
his uneasy reflections. He would have laid them asleep if he could, 
but they were in movement, like the stream, and all tending one 
way with a strong current. As the ripple under the moon broke 
unexpectedly now and then, and palely flashed in a new shape and 
with a new sound, so parts of his thoughts started, unbidden, from 
the rest, and revealed their wickedness. " Out of the question to 
marry her," said Eugene, "and out of the question to leave her. 
The crisis ! " 

He had sauntered far enough. Before turning to retrace his 
steps, he stopped upon the margin, to look down at the reflected 
night. In an instant, with a dreadful crash, the reflected night 
turned crooked, flames shot jaggedly across the air, and the moon 
and stars came bursting from the sky. 

Was he struck by lightning ? With some incoherent half-formed 
thought to that effect, he turned under the blows that were blinding 
him and mashing his life, and closed with a murderer, whom he 
caught by a red neckerchief — unless the raining down of his own 
blood gave it that hue. 

Eugene was light, active, and expert ; but his arms were broken, 
or he was paralysed, and could do no more than hang on to the 
man, with his head swung back, so that he could see nothing but 
the heaving sky. After dragging at the assailant, he fell on the 
bank with him, and then there was another great crash, and then a 
splash, and all was done. 

Lizzie Hexam, too, had avoided the noise, and the Saturday 
movement of people in the straggling street, and chose to walk 
alone by the water until her tears should be dry, and she could so 
compose herself as to escape remark upon her looking ill or unhappy 
on going home. The peaceful serenity of the hour and place, hav- 
ing no reproaches or evil intentions within her breast to contend 
against, sank healingly into its depths. She had meditated and 
taken comfort. She, too, was turning homeward, when she heard 
a strange sound. 

It startled her, for it was like a sound of blows. She stood still 
and listened. It sickened her, for blows fell heavily and cruelly on 
the quiet of the night. As she listened, undecided, all was silent. As 
she yet listened, she heard a faint groan, and a fall into the river. 

Her old bold life and habit instantly inspired her. Without 
vain waste of breath in crying for help where there were none to 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 671 

hear, she ran towards the spot from which the sounds had come. 
It lay between her and the bridge, but it was more removed from 
her than she had thought ; the night being so very quiet, and sound 
travelling far with the help of water. 

At length, she reached a part of the green bank, much and newly 
trodden, where there lay some broken splintered pieces of w^ood and 
some torn fragments of clothes. Stooping, she saw that the grass 
was bloody. Following the drops and smears, she saw that the 
watery margin of the bank was bloody. Following the current 
with her eyes, she saw a bloody face turned up towards the moon, 
and drifting away. 

Now, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, and grant, 
Blessed Lord, that through thy wonderful workings it may turn 
to good at last ! To whomsoever the drifting face belongs, be it 
man's or woman's, help my humble hands, Lord God, to raise it 
from death and restore it to some one to whom it must be dear ! 

It was thought, fervently thought, but not for a moment did the 
prayer check her. She was away before it welled up in her mind, 
away, swift and true, yet steady above all — for without steadiness 
it could never be done — to the landing-place under the willow-tree, 
where she also had seen the boat lying moored among the stakes. 

A sure touch of her old practised hand, a sure step of her old 
practised foot, a sure light balance of her body, and she was in 
the boat. A quick glance of her practised eye showed her, even 
through the deep dark shadow, the scuUs in a rack against the red- 
brick garden-wall. Another moment, and she had cast off (taking 
the line with her), and the boat had shot out into the moonlight, 
and she was rowing down the stream as never other woman rowed 
on English water. 

Intently over her shoulder, without slackening speed, she looked 
ahead for the driving face. She passed the scene of the struggle 
— yonder it was, on her left, well over the boat's stern — she passed 
on her right, the end of the village street, a hilly street that almost 
dipped into the river ; its sounds were growing faint again, and she 
slackened ; looking as the boat drove everywhere, everywhere, for 
the floating face. 

She merely kept the boat before the stream now, and rested on 
her oars, knowing well that if the face were not soon visible, it had 
gone down, and she would over-shoot it. An untrained sight would 
never have seen by the moonlight what she saw at the length of a 
few strokes astern. She saw the drowning figure rise to the surface, 
slightly struggle, and as if by instinct turn over on its back to float. 
Just so had she first dimly seen the face which she now dimly saw 
again. 



672 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Firm of look and firm of purpose, she intently watched its com- 
ing on, until it was very near ; then, with a touch unshipped her 
sculls, and crept aft in the boat, between kneeling and crouching. 
Once, she let the body evade her, not being sure of her grasp. 
Twice, and she had seized it by its bloody hair. 

It was insensible, if not virtually dead ; it was mutilated, and 
streaked the water all about it with dark red streaks. As it could 
not help itself, it was impossible for her to get it on board. She 
bent over the stern to secure it with the line, and then the river 
and its shores rang to the terrible ciy she uttered. 

But, as if possessed by supernatural spirit and strength, she 
lashed it safe, resumed her seat, and rowed in, desperately, for the 
nearest shallow water where she might run the boat aground. 
Desperately, but not wildly, for she knew that if she lost distinct- 
ness of intention, all was lost and gone. 

She ran the boat ashore, went into the water, released him from 
the line, and by main strength lifted him in her arms and laid him 
in the bottom of the boat. He had fearful wounds upon him, and 
she bound them up with her dress torn into strips. Else, suppos- 
ing him to be still alive, she foresaw that he must bleed to death 
before he could be landed at his inn, which was the nearest place 
for succour. This done very rapidly, she kissed his disfigured fore- 
head, looked up in anguish to the stars, and blessed him and for- 
gave him, " if she had anything to forgive." It was only in that 
instant that she thought of herself, and then she thought of her- 
self only for him. 

Now, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, enabling 
me, without a w^asted moment, to have got the boat afloat again, 
and to row back against the stream ! And grant, Blessed Lord 
God, that through poor me he may be raised from death, and pre- 
served to some one else to whom he may be dear one day, though 
never dearer than to me ! 

She rowed hard — rowed desperately, but never wildly — and 
seldom removed her eyes from him in the bottom of the boat. 
She had so laid him there, as that she might see his disfigured 
face ; it was so much disfigured that his mother might have 
covered it, but it was above and beyond disfigurement in her eyes. 

The boat touched the edge of the patch of inn lawn, sloping 
gently to the water. There were lights in the windows, but there 
chanced to be no one out of doors. She made the boat fast, and 
again by main strength took him up, and never laid him down 
until she laid him down in the house. 

Surgeons were sent for, and she sat supporting his head. She 
had oftentimes heard in days that were gone, how doctors would 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 673 

lift the hand of an insensible wounded person, and would drop it if 
the person were dead. She waited for the awful moment when the 
doctors might lift this hand, all broken and bruised, and let it fall. 

The first of the surgeons came, and asked, before proceeding to 
his examination, "Who brought him in? " 

"I brought him in, sir," answered Lizzie, at whom all present 
looked. 

" You, my dear 1 You could not lift, far less carry, this weight." 

" I think I could not, at another time, sir ; but I am sure I did." 

The surgeon looked at her with great attention, and with some 
compassion. Having with a grave face touched the wounds upon 
the head, and the broken arms, he took the hand. 

Oh ! would he let it drop ? 

He appeared irresolute. He did not retain it, but laid it gently 
down, took a candle, looked more closely at the injuries on the 
head, and at the pupils of the eyes. That done, he replaced the 
candle and took the hand again. Another surgeon then coming 
in, the two exchanged a whisper, and the second took the hand. 
Neither did he let it fall at once, but kept it for a while and laid 
it gently down. 

"Attend to the poor girl," said the first surgeon then. " She is 
quite unconscious. She sees nothing and hears nothing. All the 
better for her ! Don't rouse her, if you can help it ; only move 
her. Poor girl, poor girl ! She must be amazingly strong of 
heart, but it is much to be feared that she has set her heart upon 
the dead. Be gentle with her." 



CHAPTER VII. 

BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN. 

Day was breaking at Plash water Weir-Mill Lock. Stars were 
yet visible, but there was dull light in the east that was not the 
light of night. The moon had gone down, and a mist crept along 
the banks of the river, seen through which the trees were the ghosts 
of trees, and the water was the ghost of water. This earth looked 
spectral, and so did the pale stars : while the cold eastern glare, ex- 
pressionless as to heat or colour, with the eye of the firmament 
quenched, might have been likened to the stare of the dead. 

Perhaps it was so likened by the lonely Bargeman, standing on 
the brink of the lock. For certain, Bradley Headstone looked 
that way, when a chill air came up, and when it passed on mur- 
muring, as if it whispered something that made the phantom trees 

2x 



674 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

and water tremble — or threaten — for fancy might have made it 
either. 

He turned away, and tried the Lock-house door. It was 
fastened on the inside. 

" Is he afraid of rae ? " he muttered, knocking. 

Rogue Riderhood was soon roused, and soon undrew the bolt 
and let him in. 

" Why, T'otherest, I thought you had been and got lost ! Two 
nights away ! I a'most believed as you'd giv' me the slip, and I 
had as good as half a mind for to advertise you in the newspapers 
to come for'ard." 

Bradley's face turned so dark on this hint, that Riderhood 
deemed it expedient to soften it into a compliment. 

"But not you, governor, not you," he went on, stolidly shaking 
his head. " For what did I say to myself arter having amused 
myself with that there stretch of a comic idea, as a sort of a play- 
ful game ? Why, I says to myself, ' He's a man o' honour.' That's 
what I says to myself ' He's a man o' double honour.'" 

Very remarkably, Riderhood put no question to him. He had 
looked at him on opening the door, and he now looked at him again 
(stealthily this time), and the result of his looking was, that he 
asked him no question. 

"You'll be for another forty on 'em, governor, as I judges, afore 
you turns your mind to breakfast," said Riderhood, when his visitor 
sat down, resting his chin on his hand, with his eyes on the ground. 
And very remarkably again : Riderhood feigned to set the scanty 
furniture in order, while he spoke, to have a show of reason for not 
looking at him. 

" Yes, I had better sleep, I think," said Bradley, without chang- 
ing his position. 

" I myself should recommend it, governor," assented Riderhood. 
"Might you be anyways dry?" 

"Yes. I should like a drink," said Bradley; but without 
appearing to attend much. 

Mr. Riderhood got out his bottle, and fetched his jug-full of water, 
and administered a potation. Then, he shook the coverlet of his 
bed and spread it smooth, and Bradley stretched himself upon it 
in the clothes he wore. Mr. Riderhood poetically remarking that 
he would pick the bones of his night's rest in his wooden chair, sat 
in the window as before ; but, as before, watched the sleeper nar- 
rowly until he was very sound asleep. Then, he rose and looked 
at him close, in the bright daylight, on every side, with great mi- 
nuteness. He went out to his Lock to sum up what he had seen. 

" One of his sleeves is tore right away below the elber, and the 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 675 

t'other's had a good rip at the shoulder. He's been hung on to, 
pretty tight, for his shirt's all tore out of the neck-gathers. He's 
been in the grass and he's been in the water. And he's spotted, 
and I know with what, and with whose. Hooroar ! " 

Bradley slept long. Early in the afternoon a barge came down. 
Other barges had passed through, both ways, before it; but the 
Lock-keeper hailed only this particular barge, for news, as if he had 
made a time calculation with some nicety. The men on board told 
him a piece of news, and there was a lingering on their part to 
enlarge upon it. 

Twelve hours had intervened since Bradley's lying down, when 
he got up. " Not that I swaller it," said Riderhood, squinting at 
his Lock, when he saw Bradley coming out of the house, " as you've 
been a sleeping all the time, old boy ! " 

Bradley came to him, sitting on his wooden lever, and asked 
what o'clock it was ? Riderhood told him it was between two and 
three. 

" When are you relieved ? " asked Bradley. 

"Day arter to-morrow, governor." 

"Not sooner?" 

" Not a inch sooner, governor." 

On both sides importance seemed attached to this question of 
relief. Riderhood quite petted his reply; saying a second time, 
and prolonging a negative roll of his head, "n — n — not a inch 
sooner, governor." 

"Did I tell you I was going on to-night?" asked Bradley. 

"No, governor," returned Riderhood, in a cheerful, affable, and 
conversational manner, "you did not tell me so. But most like 
you meant to it and forgot to it. How, otherways, could a doubt 
have come into your head about it, governor ? " 

"As the sun goes down, I intend to go on," said Bradley. 

" So much the more necessairy is a Peck," returned Riderhood. 
" Come in and have it, T'othercst ? " 

The formality of spreading a table-cloth not being observed in 
Mr. Riderhood's establishment, the serving of the " peck " was the 
affair of a moment ; it merely consisted in the handing down of a 
capacious baking-dish with three-fourths of an immense meat pie 
in it, and the production of two pocket-knives, an earthenware 
mug, and a large brown bottle of beer. 

Both ate and drank, but Riderhood much the more abundantly. 
In lieu of plates, that honest man cut two triangular pieces from 
the thick crust of the pie, and laid them, inside uppermost, upon 
the table : the one before himself, and the other before his guest. 
Upon these platters he placed two goodly portions of the contents 



676 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

of the pie, thus imparting the unusual interest to the entertainment 
that each partaker scooped out the inside of his plate, and con- 
sumed it with his other fare, besides having the sport of pursuing 
the clots of congealed gravy over the plain of the table, and success- 
fully taking them into his mouth at last from the blade of his 
knife, in case of their not first sliding off it. 

Bradley Headstone was so remarkably awkward at these ex- 
ercises, that the Rogue observed it. 

" Look out, T'otherest ! " he cried, "you'll cut your hand ! " 

But the caution came too late, for Bradley gashed it at the instant. 
And, what was more unlucky, in asking Riderhood to tie it up, and 
in standing close to him for the purpose, he shook his hand under 
the smart of the wound, and shook blood over Riderhood's dress. 

When dinner was done, and when what remained of the platters 
and what remained of the congealed gravy had been put back into 
what remained of the pie, which served as an economical invest- 
ment for all miscellaneous savings, Riderhood filled the mug with 
beer and took a long drink. And now he did look at Bradley, and 
with an evil eye. 

" T'otherest ! " he said, hoarsely, as he bent across the table to 
touch his arm. " The news has gone down the river afore you." 

"What news?" 

"Who do you think," said Riderhood, with a hitch of his head, 
as if he disdainfully jerked the feint away, "picked up the body? 
Guess." 

" I am not good at guessing anything." 

" She did. Hooroar ! You had him there agin. She did." 

The convulsive twitching of Bradley Headstone's face, and the 
sudden hot humour that broke out upon it, showed how grimly the 
intelligence touched him. But he said not a single word, good or 
bad. He only smiled in a lowering manner, and got up and stood 
leaning at the window, looking through it. Riderhood followed him 
with his eyes. Riderhood cast down his eyes on his own besprinkled 
clothes. Riderhood began to have an air of being better at a guess 
than Bradley owned to being. 

" I have been so long in want of rest," said the schoolmaster, 
"that with your leave I'll lie down again." 

" And welcome, T'otherest ! " was the hospitable answer of his 
host. He had laid himself down without waiting for it, and he re- 
mained upon the bed until the sun was low. When he arose and 
came out to resume his journey, he found his host waiting for him 
on the grass by the towing-path outside the door. 

" Whenever it may be necessary that you and I sliould have any 
further communication together," said Bradley, " I will come back. 
Good night ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 677 

" Well, since no better can be," said Riderhood, turning on his 
heel, " Good night ! " But he turned again as the other set forth, 
and added under his breath, looking after him with a leer : " You 
wouldn't be let to go like that, if my Relief warn't as good as come. 
I'll catch you up in a mile." 

In a word, his real time of relief being that evening at sunset, 
his mate came lounging in, within a quarter of an hour. Not stay- 
ing to fill up the utmost margin of his time, but borrowing an 
hour or so, to be repaid again when he should relieve his reliever, 
Riderhood straightway followed on the track of Bradley Headstone. 

He was a better follower than Bradley. It had been the calling 
of his life to slink and skulk and dog and waylay, and he knew his 
calling well. He effected such a forced march on leaving the Lock- 
house that he was close up with him — that is to say, as close up 
with him as he deemed it convenient to be — before another Lock 
was passed. His man looked back pretty often as he went, but 
got no hint of him. He knew how to take advantage of the 
ground, and where to put the hedge between them, and where the 
wall, and when to duck, and when to drop, and had a thousand 
arts beyond the doomed Bradley's slow conception. 

But, all his arts were brought to a standstill, like himself, when 
Bradley, turning into a green lane or riding by the river-side, a 
solitary spot run wild in nettles, briars, and brambles, and encum- 
bered with the scathed trunks of a whole hedgerow of felled trees, 
on the outskirts of a little wood — began stepping on these trunks 
and dropping down among them and stepping on them again, ap- 
parently as a schoolboy might have done, but assuredly with no 
schoolboy purpose, or want of purpose. 

" What are you up to ? " muttered Riderhood, down in the ditch, 
and holding the hedge a little open with both hands. And soon 
his actions made a most extraordinary reply. " By George and 
the Draggin ! " cried Riderhood, " if he ain't a going to bathe ! " 

He had passed back, on and among the trunks of trees again, 
and had passed on to the water-side and had begun undressing on 
the grass. For a moment it had a suspicious look of suicide, ar- 
ranged to counterfeit accident. " But you wouldn't have fetched 
a bundle under your arm, from among that timber, if such was 
your game ! " said Riderhood. Nevertheless it was a relief to him 
when the bather after a plunge and a few strokes came out. 
" For I shouldn't," he said, in a feeling manner, " have liked to 
lose you till I had made more money out of you neither." 

Prone in another ditch (he had changed his ditch as his man had 
changed his position), and holding apart so small a patch of the 
hedge that the sharpest eyes could not have detected him, Rogue 



678 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Riderhood watched the bather dressing. And now gradually came 
the wonder that he stood up, completely clothed, another man, and 
not the Bargeman. 

" Aha ! " said Riderhood. " Much as you was dressed that 
night. I see. You're a taking me with you, now. You're deep. 
But I knows a deeper." 

When the bather had finished dressing, he kneeled on the grass, 
doing something with his hands, and again stood up with his 
bundle under his arm. Looking all around him with great atten- 
tion, he then went to the river's edge, and flung it in as far, and 
yet as lightly as he could. It was not until he was so decidedly 
upon his way again as to be beyond a bend of the river and for the 
time out of view, that Riderhood scrambled from the dicch. 

" Now," was his debate with himself, " shall I foller you on, or 
shall I let you loose for this once, and go a fishing ? " The debate 
continuing, he followed, as a precautionary measure in any case, 
and got him again in sight. " If I was to let you loose this once," 
said Riderhood then, still following, " I could make you come to 
me agin, or I could find you out in one way or another. If I 
wasn't to go a fishing, others might. — I'll let you loose this once, 
and go a fishing ! " With that, he suddenly dropped the pursuit 
and turned. 

The miserable man whom he had released for the time, but not 
for long, went on towards London. Bradley was suspicious of 
every sound he heard, and of every face he saw, but was under a 
spell which very commonly falls' upon the shedder of blood, and 
had no suspicion of the real danger that lurked in his life, and 
would have it yet. Riderhood was much in his thoughts — had 
never been out of his thoughts since the night-adventure of their 
first meeting ; but Riderhood occupied a very different place there, 
from the place of pursuer ; and Bradley had been at the pains of 
devising so many means of fitting that place to him, and of wedg- 
ing him into it, that his mind could not compass the possibility of 
his occupying any other. And this is another spell against which 
the shedder of blood for ever strives in vain. There are fifty doors 
by which discovery may enter. With infinite pains and cunning, 
he double locks and bars forty-nine of them, and cannot see the 
fiftieth standing wide open. 

Now, too, was he cursed with a state of mind more wearing and 
more wearisome than remorse. He had no remorse ; but the evil- 
doer who can hold that avenger at bay, cannot escape the slower 
torture of incessantly doing the evil deed again and doing it more 
efficiently. In the defensive declarations and pretended confessions 
of murderers, the pursuing shadow of this torture may be traced 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 679 

through every lie they tell. If I had done it as alleged, is it con- 
ceivable that I would have made this and this mistake ? If I had 
done it as alleged, should I have left that unguarded place which 
that false and wicked witness against me so infamously deposed 
to ? The state of that wretch who continually finds the weak spots 
in his own crime, and strives to strengthen them when it is un- 
changeable, is a state that aggravates the offence by doing the deed 
a thousand times instead of once ; but it is a state, too, that taunt- 
ingly visits the offence upon a sullen unrepentant nature with its 
heaviest punishment every time. 

Bradley toiled on, chained heavily to the idea of his hatred and 
his vengeance, and thinking how he might have satiated both in 
many better ways than the way he had taken. The instrument 
might have been better, the spot and the hour might have been 
better chosen. To batter a man down from behind in the dark, 
on the brink of a river, was well enough, but he ought to have 
been instantly disabled, whereas he had turned and seized his as- 
sailant ; and so, to end it before chance help came, and to be rid 
of him, he had been hurriedly thrown backward into the river 
before the life was fully beaten out of him. Now if it could be 
done again, it must not be so done. Supposing his head had been 
held down under water for a while. Supposing the first blow had 
been truer. Supposing he had been shot. Supposing he had been 
strangled. Suppose this way, that way, the other way. Suppose 
anything but getting unchained from the one idea, for that was 
inexorably impossible. 

The school reopened next day. The scholars saw little or 
no change in their master's face, for it always wore its slowly 
labouring expression. But, as he heard his classes, he was always 
doing the deed and doing it better. As he paused with his piece 
of chalk at the blackboard before writing on it, he was thinking 
of the spot, and whether the water was not deeper and the fall 
straighter, a little higher up, or a little lower down. He had half 
a mind to draw a lino or two upon the board, and show himself 
what he meant. He was doing it again and improving on the 
manner, at prayers, in his mental arithmetic, all through his ques- 
tioning, all through the day. 

Charley Hexam was a master now, in another school, under 
another head. It was evening, and Bradley was walking in his 
garden observed from behind a blind by gentle little Miss Peecher, 
who contemplated offering him a loan of her smelling salts for 
headache, when Mary Anne, in faithful attendance, held up her 
arm. 

" Yes, Mary Anne ? " 



680 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Young Mr. Hexam, if you please, ma'am, coming to see Mr. 
Headstone." 

" Very good, Mary Anne." 

Again Mary Anne held up her arm. 

" You may speak, Mary Anne ? " 

" Mr. Headstone has beckoned young Mr. Hexam into his house, 
ma'am, and he has gone in himself without waiting for young Mr. 
Hexam to come up, and now he has gone in too, ma'am, and has 
shut the door." 

"With all my heart, Mary Anne." 

Again Mary Anne's telegraphic arm worked. 

" What more, Mary Anne ? " 

"They must find it rather dull and dark, Miss Peecher, for the 
parlour blind's down, and neither of them pulls it up." 

" There is no accounting," said good Miss Peecher with a little 
sad sigh which she repressed by laying her hand on her neat 
methodical bodice, "there is no accounting for tastes, Mary Anne." 

Charley, entering the dark room, stopped short when he saw his 
old friend in its yellow shade. 

" Come in, Hexam, come in." 

Charley advanced to take the hand that was held out to him ; 
but stopped again, short of it. The heavy, blood-shot eyes of the 
schoolmaster, rising to his face with an effort, met his look of 
scrutiny. 

" Mr. Headstone, what's the matter 1 " 

"Matter? Where?" 

" Mr. Headstone, have you heard the news ? This news about 
the fellow, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn ? That he is killed 1 " 

"He is dead, then ! " exclaimed Bradley. 

Young Hexam standing looking at him, he moistened his lips 
with his tongue, looked about the room, glanced at his former 
pupil, and looked down. "I heard of the outrage," said Bradley, 
trying to constrain his working mouth, "but I had not heard the 
end of it." 

"Where were you," said the boy, advancing a step as he lowered 
his voice, "when it was done? Stop ! I don't ask that. Don't 
tell me. If you force your confidence upon me, Mr. Headstone, 
I'll give up every word of it. Mind ! Take notice. I'll give it 
up, and I'll give up you. I will." 

The wretched creature seemed to suffer acutely under this renun- 
ciation. A desolate air of utter and complete loneliness fell upon 
him, like a visible shade. 

"It's for me to speak, not you," said the boy. "If you do, 
you'll do it at your peril. I am going to put your selfishness 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 681 

before you, Mr. Headstone — your passionate, violent, and ungov- 
ernable selfishness — to show you why I can, and why I will, have 
nothing more to do with you." 

He looked at young Hexam as if he were waiting for a scholar 
to go on with a lesson that he knew by heart and was deadly tired 
of But he had said his last word to him. 

"If you had any part — I don't say what — in this attack," 
pursued the boy; "or if you know anything about it — I don't 
say how much — or if you know who did it — I go no closer — 
you did an injury to me that's never to be forgiven. You know 
that I took you with me to his chambers in the Temple when I 
told him my opinion of him, and made myself responsible for my 
opinion of you. You know that I took you with me when I was 
watching him with a view to recovering my sister and bringing her 
to her senses ; you know that I have allowed myself to be mixed 
up with you all through this business, in favouring your desire to 
marry my sister. And how do you know that, pursuing the ends 
of your own violent temjoer, you have not laid me open to sus- 
picion ? Is that your gratitude to me, Mr. Headstone 1 " 

Bradley sat looking steadily before him at the vacant air. As 
often as young Hexam stopped, he turned his eyes towards him, 
as if he were waiting for him to go on with the lesson, and get it 
done. As often as the boy resumed, Bradley resumed his fixed 
face. 

" I am going to be plain with you, Mr. Headstone," said young 
Hexam, shaking his head in a half- threatening manner, " because 
this is no time for affecting not to know things that I do know — 
except certain things at which it might not be very safe for you to 
hint again. What I mean is this : if you were a good master, 
I was a good pupil. I have done you plenty of credit, and in 
improving my own reputation I have improved yours quite as 
much. Very well then. Starting on equal terms, I want to put 
before you how you have shown your gratitude to me, for doing all 
I could to further your wishes with reference to my sister. You 
have compromised me by being seen about with me, endeavouring 
to counteract this Mr. Eugene Wrayburn. That's the first thing 
you have done. If my character, and my now dropping you, help 
me out of that, Mr. Headstone, the deliverance is to be attributed 
to me, and not to you. No thanks to you for it ! " 

The boy stopping again, he moved his eyes again. 

" I am going on, Mr. Headstone, don't you be afraid. I am 
going on to the end, and I have told you beforehand what the end 
is. Now, you know my story. You are as well aware as I am, that 
I have had many disadvantages to leave behind me in life. You 



682 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

have heard me mention my father, and you are sufficiently acquainted 
with the fact that the home from which I, as I may say, escaped, 
might have been a more creditable one than it was. My father 
died, and then it might have been supposed that my way to respect- 
ability was pretty clear. No. For then my sister begins." 

He spoke as confidently, and with as entire an absence of any 
tell-tale colour in his cheek, as if there were no softening old time 
behind him. Not wonderful, for there ivas none in his hollow 
empty heart. What is there but self, for selfishness to see behind 
it^ 

"When I speak of my sister, I devoutly wish that you had 
never seen her, Mr. Headstone. However, you did see her, and 
that's useless now. I confided in you about her. I explained her 
character to you, and how she interposed some ridiculous fanciful 
notions in the way of our being as respectable as I tried for. You 
fell in love with her, and I favoured you wdth all my might. She 
could not be induced to favour you, and so we came into collision 
with this Mr. Eugene Wrayburn. Now, what have you done? 
Why, you have justified my sister in being firmly set against you 
from first to last, and you have put me in the wrong again ! And 
why have you done it? Because, Mr. Headstone, you are in all 
your passions so selfish, and so concentrated upon yourself, that 
you have not bestowed one proper thought on me." 

The cool conviction with which the boy took up and held his 
position, could have been derived from no other vice in human 
nature. 

" It is," he went on, actually with tears, " an extraordinaiy cir- 
cumstance attendant on my life, that every eff'ort I make towards 
perfect respectability, is impeded by somebody else through no 
fault of mine ! Not content with doing what I have put before 
you, you will drag my name into notoriety through dragging my 
sister's — which you are pretty sure to do, if my suspicions have 
any foundation at all — and the worse you prove to be, the harder 
it will be for me to detach myself from being associated with you 
in people's minds." 

When he had dried his eyes and heaved a sob over his injuries, 
he began moving towards the door. 

" However, I have made up my mind that I will become respect- 
able in the scale of society, and that I will not be dragged down by 
others. I have done with my sister as well as with you. Since 
she cares so little for me as to care nothing for undermining my 
respectability, she shall go her way and I will go mine. My pros- 
pects are very good, and I mean to follow them alone. Mr. Head- 
stone, I don't say what you have got upon your conscience, for I 




BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN. 



684 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

don't know. Whatever lies upon it, I hope you will see the justice 
of keeping wide and clear of me, and will find a consolation in 
completely exonerating all but yourself. I hope before many years 
are out, to succeed the master in my present school, and the mis- 
tress being a single woman, though some years older than I am, I 
might even marry her. If it is any comfort to you to know what 
plans I may work out by keeping myself strictly respectable in the 
scale of society, these are the plans at present occurring to me. 
In conclusion, if you feel a sense of having injured me, and a desire 
to make some small reparation, I hope you will think how respect- 
able you might have been yourself, and will contemplate your 
blighted existence." 

Was it strange that the wretched man should take this heavily 
to heart? Perhaps he had taken the boy to heart, first, through 
some long laborious years ; perhaps through the same years he had 
found his drudgery lightened by communication with a brighter and 
more apprehensive spirit than his own ; perhaps a family resem- 
blance of face and voice between the boy and his sister, smote him 
hard in the gloom of his fallen state. For whichsoever reason, or 
for all, he drooped his devoted head when the boy was gone, and 
shrank together on the floor, and grovelled there, with the palms 
of his hands tight-clasping his hot temples, in unutterable misery, 
and unrelieved by a single tear. 

Rogue Riderhood had been busy with the river that day. He 
had fished with assiduity on the previous evening, but the light 
was short, and he had fished unsuccessfully. He had fished again 
that day with better luck, and had carried his fish home to Plash- 
water Weir-Mill Lock-house, in a bundle. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER. 

The dolls' dressmaker went no more to the business-premises of 
Pubsey and Co. in Saint Mary Axe, after chance had disclosed to 
her (as she supposed) the flinty and hypocritical character of Mr. 
Riah. She often moralised over her work on the tricks and the 
manners of that venerable cheat, but made her little purchases else- 
where, and lived a secluded life. After much consultation with 
herself, she decided not to put Lizzie Hexam on her guard against 
the old man, arguing that the disappointment of finding him out 
would come upon her quite soon enough. Therefore, in her com- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 685 

munication with her friend by letter, she was silent on this theme, 
and principally dilated on the backslidings of her bad child, who 
every day grew worse and worse. 

"You wicked old boy," Miss Wren would say to him, with a 
menacing forefinger ; " you'll force me to run away from you, after 
all, you will ; and then you'll shake to bits, and there'll be nobody 
to pick up the pieces ! " 

At this foreshadowing of a desolate decease, the wicked old boy 
would whine and whimper, and would sit shaking himself into the 
lowest of low spirits, until such time as he could shake himself 
out of the house and shake another threepennyworth into himself. 
But dead drunk or dead sober (he had come to such a pass that 
he was least alive in the latter state), it was always on the con- 
science of the paralytic scarecrow that he had betrayed his sharp 
parent for sixty threepennyworths of rum, which were all gone, 
and that her sharpness would infallibly detect his having done it 
sooner or later. All things considered, therefore, and addition 
made of the state of his body to the state of his mind, the bed on 
which Mr. Dolls reposed was a bed of roses from which the flowers 
and leaves had entirely faded, leaving him to lie upon the thorns 
and stalks. 

On a certain day, Miss Wren was alone at her work, with the 
house-door set open for coolness, and was trolling in a small sweet 
voice a mournful little song, which might have been the song of the 
doll she was dressing, bemoaning the brittleness and meltability of 
wax, when whom should she descry standing on the pavement, 
looking in at her, but Mr. Fledgeby. 

" I thought it was you 1 " said Fledgeby, coming up the two steps. 

" Did you 1 " Miss Wren retorted. " And I thought it was you, 
young man. Quite a coincidence. You're not mistaken, and I'm 
not mistaken. How clever we are ! " 

" Well, and how are you ? " said Fledgeby. 

"I am pretty much as usual, sir," replied Miss Wren. " A very 
unfortunate parent, worried out of my life and senses by a very 
bad child." 

Fledgeby's small eyes opened so wide that they might have passed 
for ordinary- sized eyes, as he stared about him for the very young 
person whom he supposed to be in question. 

"But you're not a parent," said Miss Wren, " and consequently 
it's of no use talking to you upon a family subject. To what am 
I to attribute the honour and favour ? " 

" To a wish to improve your acquaintance," Mr. Fledgeby replied. 

Miss Wren, stopping to bite her thread, looked at him very 
knowingly. 



686 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" We never meet now," said Fledgeby ; "do we ? " 

" No," said Miss Wren, chopping off the word. 

"So I had a mind," pursued Fledgeby, "to come and have a 
talk with you about our dodging friend, the child of Israel." 

" So he gave you my address ; did he 1 " asked Miss Wren. 

" I got it out of him," said Fledgeby, with a stammer. 

"You seem to see a good deal of him," remarked Miss Wren, 
with shrewd distrust. " A good deal of him you seem to see, con- 
sidering." 

" Yes, I do," said Fledgebyo " Considering." 

" Haven't you," inquired the dressmaker, bending over the doll 
on which her art was being exercised, " done interceding with him 
yet?" 

"No," said Fledgeby, shaking his head. 

" La ! Been interceding with him all this time, and sticking 
to him still 1 " said Miss Wren, busy with her Avork. 

" Sticking to him is the word," said Fledgeby. 

Miss Wren pursued her occupation with a concentrated air, and 
asked, after an interval of silent industry : 

" Are you in the army ? " 

" Not exactly," said Fledgeby, rather flattered by the question. 

" Navy 1 " asked Miss Wren. 

" N — no," said Fledgeby. He qualified these two negatives, as 
if he were not absolutely in either service, but was almost in both. 

" What are you then ? " demanded Miss W^ren. 

"I am a gentleman, I am," said Fledgeby. 

" Oh ! " assented Jenny, screwing up her mouth with an appear- 
ance of conviction. " Yes, to be sure ! That accounts for your 
having so much time to give to interceding. But only to think 
how kind and friendly a gentleman you must be ! " 

Mr. Fledgeby found that he was skating round a board marked 
Dangerous, and had better cut out a fresh track. " Let's get back 
to the dodgerest of the dodgers," said he. " What's he up to in the 
case of your friend the handsome gal? He must have some object. 
What's his object ? " 

" Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure ! " returned Miss Wren, 
composedly. 

"He won't acknowledge where she's gone," said Fledgeby; 
"and I have a fancy that I should like to have another look at 
her. Now I know he knows where she is gone." 

" Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure ! " Miss Wren again 
rejoined. 

" And you know where she is gone ? " hazarded Fledgeby. 

" Cannot undertake to say, sir, really," replied Miss Wren. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 687 

The quaint little chin met Mr. Fledgeby's gaze with such a baf- 
fling hitch, that that agreeable gentleman was for some time at a 
loss how to resume his fascinating part in the dialogue. At length 
he said : 

" Miss Jenny ! — That's your name, if I don't mistake ? " 

" Probably you don't mistake, sir," was Miss Wren's cool answer ; 
"because you had it on the best authority. Mine, you know." 

" Miss Jenny ! Instead of coming up and being dead, let's come 
out and look alive. It'll pay better, I assure you," said Fledgeby, 
bestowing an inveigling twinkle or two upon the dressmaker. 
"You'll find it pay better." 

" Perhaps," said Miss Jenny, holding out her doll at arm's length, 
and critically contemplating the effect of her art with her scissors on 
her lips and her head thrown back, as if her interest lay there, and 
not in the conversation ; " perhaps you'll explain your meaning, 
young man, which is Greek to me. — You must have another touch 
of blue in your trimming, my dear." Having addressed the last 
remark to her fair client. Miss Wren proceeded to snip at some blue 
fragments that lay before her, among fragments of all colours, and 
to thread a needle from a skein of blue silk. 

" Look here," said Fledgeby. — " Are you attending 1 " 

" I am attending, sir," replied Miss Wren, without the slightest 
appearance of so doing. "Another touch of blue in your trim- 
ming, my dear." 

" Well, look here," said Fledgeby, rather discouraged by the cir- 
cumstances under which he found himself pursuing the conversa- 
tion. " If you're attending " 

(" Light blue, my sweet young lady," remarked Miss Wren, in 
a sprightly tone, "being best suited to your fair complexion and 
your flaxen curls.") 

" I say, if you're attending," proceeded Fledgeby, " it'll pay better 
in this way. It'll lead in a roundabout manner to your buying 
damage and waste of Pubsey and Co. at a nominal price, or even 
getting it for nothing." 

"Aha ! " thought the dressmaker. "But you are not so round- 
about. Little Eyes, that I don't notice your answering for Pubsey 
and Co. after all ! Little Eves, Little Eyes, you're too cunning by 
half." 

"And I take it for granted," pursued Fledgeby, "that to get the 
most of your materials for nothing would be well worth your while, 
Miss Jenny 1 " 

"You may take it for granted," returned the dressmaker with 
many knowing nods, " that it's always well worth my while to 
make money." 



688 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Now," said Fledgeby approvingly, " you're answering to a sen- 
sible jDurpose. Now, you're coming out and looking alive ! So I 
make so free, Miss Jenny, as to offer the remark, that you and 
Judah were too thick together to last. You can't come to be inti- 
mate with such a deep file as Judah without beginning to see a little 
way into him, you know," said Fledgeby with a wink. 

" I must own," returned the dressmaker, with her eyes upon her 
work, " that we are not good friends at present." 

"I know you're not good friends at present," said Fledgeby. 
" I know all about it. I should like to pay off Judah, by not 
letting him have his own deep way in everything. In most things 
he'll get it by hook or by crook, but — hang it all ! — don't let him 
have his own deep way in everything. That's too much." Mr. 
Fledgeby said this with some display of indignant warmth, as if 
he was counsel in the cause for Virtue. 

" How can I prevent his having his own way ? " began the dress- 
maker. 

" Deep way, I called it," said Fledgeby. 

" — His own deep way, in anything 1 " 

"I'll tell you," said Fledgeby. "I like to hear you ask it, 
because it's looking alive. It's what I should expect to find in 
one of your sagacious understanding. Now, candidly." 

" Eh r' cried Miss Jenny. 

"I said, now candidly," Mr. Fledgeby explained, a little put out. 

" Oh-h ! " 

" I should be glad to countermine him, respecting the handsome 
gal, your friend. He means something there. You may depend 
upon it, Judah means something there. He has a motive, and of 
course his motive is a dark motive. Now, whatever his motive is, 
it's necessary to his motive " — Mr. Fledgeby's constructive powers 
were not equal to the avoidance of some tautology here — " that it 
should be kept from me, what he has done with her. So I put it 
to you, who know : What has he done with her ? I ask no more. 
And is that asking much, when you understand that it will pay ? " 

Miss Jenny Wren, who had cast her eyes upon the bench again 
after her last interruption, sat looking at it, needle in hand but not 
working, for some moments. She then briskly resumed lier work, and 
said, with a sidelong glance of her eyes and chin at Mr. Fledgeby, 

"Where d'ye live?" 

"Albany, Piccadilly," replied Fledgeby. 

" When are you at home 1 " 

"When you like." 

" Breakfast-time ? " said Jenny, in her abruptest and shortest 
manner. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 689 

"No better time in the day," said Fledgeby. 

" I'll look in upon you to-morrow, young man. Those two 
ladies," pointing to dolls, "have an appointment in Bond Street at 
ten precisely. When I've dropped 'em there, I'll drive round to 
you." With a weird little kugh. Miss Jenny pointed to her crutch- 
stick as her equipage. 

" This is looking alive indeed ! " cried Fledgeby, rising. 

" Mark you ! I promise you nothing," said the dolls' dress- 
maker, dabbing two dabs at him with her needle, as if she put out 
both his eyes. 

"No, no. / understand," returned Fledgeby. "The damage 
and waste question shall be settled first. It shall be made to pay; 
don't you be afraid. Good day, Miss Jenny." 

" Good day, young man." 

Mr. Fledgeljy's prepossessing form withdrew itself : and the little 
dressmaker, clipping and snipping and stitching, and stitching and 
snipping and clipping, fell to work at a great rate; musing and 
muttering all the time. 

"Misty, misty, misty. Can't make it out. Little Eyes and 
the wolf in a conspiracy"? Or Little Eyes and the wolf against 
one another? Can't make it out. My poor Lizzie, have they 
both designs against you, either way"? Can't make it out. Is 
Little Eyes Pubsey, and the wolf Co. 1 Can't make it out. Pub- 
sey true to Co., and Co. to Pubsey? Pubsey false to Co., and Co. 
to Pubsey ? Can't make it out. What said Little Eyes 1 ' Now, 
candidly V Ah ! However the cat jumps, Ae's a liar. That's all 
I can make out at present ; but you may go to bed in the Albany, 
Piccadilly, with that for your pillow, young man ! " Thereupon, 
the little dressmaker again dabbed out his eyes separately, and 
making a loop in the air of her thread and deftly catching it into 
a knot with her needle, seemed to bowstring him into the bargain. 

For the terrors undergone by Mr. Dolls that evening when his 
little parent sat profoundly meditating over her work, and when 
he imagined himself found out, as often as she changed her atti- 
tude, or turned her eyes towards him, there is no adequate name. 
Moreover it was her habit to shake her head at that wretched old 
boy whenever she caught his eye as he shivered and shook. What 
are popularly called " the trembles " being in full force upon him 
that evening, and likewise what are popularly called " the horrors," 
he had a very bad time of it ; which was not made better by his 
being so remorseful as frequently to moan " Sixty threepenn'orths." 
This imperfect sentence not being at all intelligible as a confession, 
but sounding like a Gargantuan order for a dram, brought him into 
new difficulties by occasioning his parent to pounce at him in a 

2y 



690 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

more than usually snappish manner, and to overwhelm him with 
bitter reproaches. 

What was a bad time for Mr. Dolls, could not fail to be a bad 
time for the dolls' dressmaker. However, she was on the alert 
next morning, and drove to Bond Street, and set down the two 
ladies punctually, and then directed her equipage to conduct her to 
the Albany. Arrived at the doorway of the house in which Mr. 
Fledgeby's chambers were, she found a lady standing there in a 
travelling dress, holding in her hand — of all things in the world 
— a gentleman's hat. 

"You want some one?" said the lady in a stern manner. 

"I am going up-stairs to Mr. Fledgeby's." 

" You cannot do that at this moment. There is a gentleman 
with him. I am waiting for the gentleman. His business with 
Mr. riedgeby will very soon be transacted, and then you can go 
up. Until the gentleman comes down, you must wait here." 

While speaking, and afterwards, the lady kept watchfully be- 
tween her and the staircase, as if prepared to oppose her going up, 
by force. The lady being of a stature to stop her with a hand, 
and looking mightily determined, the dressmaker stood still. 

" Well ? Why do you listen ? " asked the lady. 

"I am not listening," said the dressmaker. 

" What do you hear? " asked the lady, altering her phrase. 

"Is it a kind of a spluttering somewhere ? " said the dressmaker, 
with an inquiring look. 

"Mr. Fledgeby in his shower-bath, perhaps," remarked the lady, 
smiling. 

" And somebody's beating a carpet, I think ? " 

"Mr. Fledgeby's carpet, I dare say," replied the smiling lady. 

Miss Wren had a reasonably good eye for smiles, being well ac- 
customed to them on the part of her young friends, though their 
smiles mostly ran smaller than in nature. But she had never seen 
so singular a smile as that upon this lady's face. It twitched her 
nostrils open in a remarkable manner, and contracted her lips and 
eyebrows. It w^as a smile of enjoyment too, though of such a 
fierce kind that Miss Wren thought she would rather not enjoy 
herself than do it in that way. 

" Well ! " said the lady, watching her. " What now ? " 

" I hope there's nothing the matter ! " said the dressmaker. 

" Where 1 " inquired the lady. 

"I don't know where," said Miss Wren, staring about her. 
" But I never heard such odd noises. Don't you think I had 
better call somebody?" 

"I think you had better not," returned the lady with a signifi- 
cant frown, and drawing closer. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 691 

Ou this hint, the dressmaker relinquished the idea, and stood 
looking at the lady as hard as the lady looked at her. Meanwhile 
the dressmaker listened with amazement to the odd noises which 
still continued, and the lady listened too, but with a coolness in 
which there was no trace of amazement. 

Soon afterwards, came a slamming and banging of doors; and 
then came running down-stairs, a gentleman with whiskers, and 
out of breath, who seemed to be red-hot. 

" Is your business done, Alfred ? " inquired the lady. 

" Very thoroughly done," replied the gentleman, as he took his 
hat from her. 

"You can go up to Mr. Fledgeby as soon as you like," said the 
lady, moving haughtily away. 

"Oh! And you can take these three pieces of stick with you," 
added the gentleman, politely, "and say, if you please, that they 
come from Mr. Alfred Lammle, with his compliments, on leaving 
England. Mr. Alfred Lammle. Be so good as not to forget the 
name." 

The three pieces of stick were three broken and frayed fragments 
of a stout lithe cane. Miss Jenny taking them wonderingly, and 
the gentleman repeating with a grin, "Mr. Alfred Lammle, if 
you'll be so good. Compliments, on leaving England," the lady 
and gentleman walked away quite deliberately, and Miss Jenny 
and her crutch-stick went up-stairs. " Lammle, Lammle, Lammle?" 
Miss Jenny repeated as she panted from stair to stair, "where have 
I heard that name 1 Lammle, Lammle ? I know ! Saint Mary 
Axe ! " 

With a gleam of new intelligence in her sharp face, the dolls' 
dressmaker pulled at Fledgeby's bell. No one answered; but, 
from within the chambers, there proceeded a continuous splutter- 
ing sound of a highly singular and unintelligible nature. 

" Good gracious ! Is Little Eyes choking 1 " cried Miss Jenny. 

Pulling at the bell again and getting no reply, she pushed the 
outer door, and found it standing ajar. No one being visible on 
her opening it wider, and the spluttering continuing, she took the 
liberty of opening an inner door, and then beheld the extraordinary 
spectacle of Mr. Fledgeby in his shirt, a pair of Turkish trousers, 
and a Turkish cap, rolling over and over on his own carpet, and 
spluttering wonderfully. 

" Oh Lord ! " gasped Mr. Fledgeby. " Oh my eye ! Stop thief ! 
I am strangling. Fire ! Oh my eye ! A glass of water. Give 
me a glass of water. Shut the door„ Murder ! Oh Lord ! " and 
then rolled and spluttered more than ever. 

Hurrying into another room, Miss Jenny got a glass of water. 



692 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

and brouglit it for Fledge by's relief: who, gasping, spluttering, and 
rattling in his throat betweenwhiles, drank some water, and laid 
his head faintly on her arm. 

" Oh my eye ! " cried Fledgeby, struggling anew. " It's salt 
and snuff. It's up my nose, and down my throat, and in my 
windpipe. Ugh ! Ow ! Ow ! Ow ! Ah — h — h — h ! " And here, 
crowing fearfully, with his eyes starting out of his head, appeared 
to be contending with every mortal disease incidental to poultry. 

" And Oh my Eye, I'm so sore ! " cried Fledgeby, starting over 
on his back, in a spasmodic way that caused the dressmaker to 
retreat to the wall. "Oh I smart so ! Do put something to my 
back and arms, and legs and shoulders. Ugh! It's down my 
throat again and can't come up. Ow ! Ow ! Ow ! Ah — h — h — h ! 
Oh I smart so ! " Here Mr. Fledgeby bounded up, and bounded 
down, and went rolling over and over again. 

The dolls' dressmaker looked on until he rolled himself into a 
corner with his Turkish slippers uppermost, and then, resolving in 
the first place to address her ministration to the salt and snuff, 
gave him more water and slapped his back. But, the latter appli- 
cation was by no means a success, causing Mr. Fledgeby to scream, 
and to cry out, " Oh my eye ! don't slap me ! I'm covered with 
weales and I smart so ! " 

However, he gradually ceased to choke and crow, saving at inter- 
vals, and Miss Jenny got him into an easy-chair : where, with his 
eyes red and watery, with his features swollen, and with some half- 
dozen livid bars across his face, he presented a most rueful sight. 

"What ever possessed you to take salt and snuff, young man?" 
inquired Miss Jenny. 

" I didn't take it," the dismal youth replied. " It was crammed 
into my mouth." 

" Who crammed it ? " asked Miss Jenny. 

" He did," answered Fledgeby. " The assassin. Lammle. He 
rubbed it into my mouth and up my nose and down my throat — 
Ow ! Ow ! Ow ! Ah — h — h — h ! Ugh ! — to prevent my crying 
out, and then cruelly assaulted me." 

" With this 1 " asked Miss Jenny, showing the pieces of cane. 

" That's the weapon," said Fledgeby, eyeing it with the air of an 
acquaintance. " He broke it over me. Oh, I smart so ! How 
did you come by it ?" 

" When he ran down-stairs and joined the lady he had left in the 
hall with his hat " — Miss Jenny began. 

"Oh!" groaned Mr. Fledgeby, writhing. "She was holding his 
hat, was she ? I might have known she was in it." 

"When he came down-stairs and joined the lady who wouldn't 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 693 

let me come up, he gave me the pieces for you, and I was to say, 
'With Mr. Alfred Lammle's compliments on his leaving England.' " 
Miss Jenny said it with such spiteful satisfaction, and such a hitch 
of her chin and eyes as might have added to Mr. Fledgeby's mis- 
eries, if he could have noticed either, in his bodily pain with his 
hand to his head. 

" Shall I go for the police ? " inquired Miss Jenny, with a nimble 
start towards the door. 

" Stop ! No, don't ! " cried Fledgeby. " Don't, please. We 
had better keep it quiet. Will you be so good as shut the door ? 
Oh, I do smart so ! " 

In testimony of the extent to which he smarted, Mr. Fledgeby 
came wallowing out of the easy-chair, and took another roll on the 
carpet. 

" Now the door's shut," said Mr. Fledgeby, sitting up in anguish, 
with his Turkish cap half on and half off, and the bars on his face 
getting bluer, "do me the kindness to look at my back and shoul- 
ders. They must be in an awful state, for I hadn't got my dress- 
ing-gown on, when the brute came rushing in. Cut my shirt 
away from the collar ; there's a pair of scissors on that table. Oh ! " 
groaned Mr. Fledgeby, with his hand to his head again. " How I 
do smart, to be sure ! " 

"There?" inquired Miss Jenny, alluding to the back and 
shoulders. 

" Oh Lord, yes ! " moaned Fledgeby, rocking himself. "And all 
over ! Everywhere ! " 

The busy little dressmaker quickly snipped the shirt away, and 
laid bare the results of as furious and sound a thrashing as even 
Mr. Fledgeby merited. " You may well smart, young man ! " 
exclaimed Miss Jenny. And stealthily rubbed her little hands 
behind him, and poked a few exultant pokes with her two fore- 
fingers over the crown of his head. 

" What do you think of vinegar and brown paper ? " inquired the 
suifering Fledgeby, still rocking and moaning. " Does it look as 
if vinegar and brown paper was the sort of application 1 " 

"Yes," said Miss Jennj^, with a silent chuckle. "It looks as if 
it ought to be Pickled." 

Mr. Fledgeby collapsed under the word "Pickled," and groaned 
again. "My kitchen is on this floor," he said ; "you'll find brown 
paper in a dresser-drawer there, and a bottle of vinegar on a shelf. 
Would you have the kindness to make a few plasters and put 'em 
on 1 It can't be kept too quiet." 

" One, two — hum — five, six. You'll want six," said the dress- 
maker. 



694 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" There's smart enough," whimpered Mr. Fledgeby, groaning and 
writhing again, "for sixty." 

Miss Jenny repaired to the kitchen, scissors in hand, found the 
brown paper and found the vinegar, and skilfully cut out and steeped 
six large plasters. When they were all lying ready on the dresser, 
an idea occurred to her as she was about to gather them up. 

"I think," said Miss Jenny, with a silent laugh, "he ought to 
have a little pepper 1 Just a few grains ? I think the young man's 
tricks and manners make a claim upon his friends for a little 
pepper 1 " 

Mr. Fledgeby's evil star showing her the pepper-box on the chim- 
ney-piece, she climbed upon a chair, and got it down, and sprinkled 
all the plasters with a judicious hand. She then went back to Mr. 
Fledgeby, and stuck them all on him : Mr. Fledgeby uttering a 
sharp howl as each was put in its place. 

" There, young man ! " said the dolls' dressmaker. " Now I 
hope you feel pretty comfortable 1 " 

Apparently Mr. Fledgeby did not, for he cried by way of answer, 
" Oh— h, how I do smart ! " 

Miss Jenny got his Persian gown upon him, extinguished his 
eyes crookedly with his Persian cap, and helped him to his bed : 
upon which he climbed groaning. " Business between you and me 
being out of the question to-day, young man, and my time being 
precious," said Miss Jenny then, "I'll make myself scarce. Are 
you comfortable now 1 " 

" Oh my eye ! " cried Mr. Fledgeby. " No, I ain't. Oh — h— h ! 
How I do smart ! " 

The last thing Miss Jenny saw, as she looked back before closing 
the room door, was Mr. Fledgeby in the act of plunging and gam- 
bolling all over his bed, like a porpoise or dolphin in its native ele- 
ment. She then shut the bedroom door, and all the other doors, 
and going down-stairs and emerging from the Albany into the busy 
streets, took omnibus for Saint Mary Axe : pressing on the road all 
the gaily-dressed ladies whom she could see from the window, and 
making them unconscious lay-figures for dolls, while she mentally 
cut them out and basted them. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 695 

CHAPTER IX. 

TWO PLACES VACATED. 

Set down by the omnibus at the corner of Saint Mary Axe, and 
trusting to her feet and her crutch-stick within its precincts, tlie 
dolls' dressmaker proceeded to the place of business of Pubsey and 
Co. All there was sunny and quiet externally, and shady and quiet 
internally. Hiding herself in the entry outside the glass door, she 
could see from that post of observation the old man in his spec- 
tacles sitting writing at his desk. 

" Boh ! " cried the dressmaker, popping in her head at the glass 
door. " Mr. Wolf at home ? " 

The old man took his glasses off, and mildly laid them down 
beside him. "Ah Jenny, is it you? I thought you had given 
me up." 

"And so I had given up the treacherous wolf of the forest," she 
rephed; "but, godmother, it strikes me you have come back. 
I am not quite sure, because the wolf and you change forms. I 
want to ask you a question or two, to find out whether you are 
really godmother or really wolf. May 1 1 " 

"Yes, Jenny, yes." But Riah glanced towards the door, as if 
he thought his principal might appear there, unseasonably. 

"If you're afraid of the fox," said Miss Jenny, "you may 
dismiss all present expectations of seeing that animal. He won't 
show himself abroad for many a day." 

" What do you mean, my child ? " 

" I mean, godmother," replied Miss Wren, sitting down beside 
the Jew, " that the fox has caught a famous flogging, and that if 
his skin and bones are not tingling, aching, and smarting at this 
present instant, no fox did ever tingle, ache, and smart." There- 
with Miss Jenny related what had come to pass in the Albany, 
omitting the few grains of pepper. 

"Now, godmother," she went on, "I particularly wish to ask 
you what has taken place here, since I left the wolf here 1 Because 
I have an idea about the size of a marble, rolling about in my little 
noddle. First and foremost, are you Pubsey and Co., or are you 
either ? Upon your solemn word and honour." 

The old man shook his head. 

" Secondly, isn't Fledgeby both Pubsey and Co. ? " 

The old man answered with a reluctant nod. 

"My idea," exclaimed Miss Wren, "is now about the size of an 
orange. But before it gets any bigger, welcome back, dear god- 
mother ! " 



696 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

The little creature folded her arms about the old man's neck 
with great earnestness, and kissed him. "I humbly beg your 
forgiveness, godmother. I am truly sorry. I ought to have had 
more faith in you. But what could I suppose when you said noth- 
ing for yourself, you know 1 I don't mean to offer that as a justifi- 
cation, but what could I suppose, when you were a silent party to 
all he said ? It did look bad ; now didn't it 1 " 

"It looked so bad, Jenny," responded the old man, with gravity, 
" that I will straightway tell you what an impression it wrought 
upon me. I was hateful in mine own eyes. I was hateful to my- 
self, in being so hateful to the debtor and to you. But more than 
that, and worse than that, and to pass out far and broad beyond 
myself — I reflected that evening, sitting alone in my garden on 
the housetop, that I was doing dishonour to my ancient faith and 
race. I reflected — clearly reflected for the first time, that in bend- 
ing my neck to the yoke I was willing to wear, I bent the unwill- 
ing necks of the whole Jewish people. For it is not, in Christian 
countries, with the Jews as with other peoples. Men say, ' This 
is a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. This is a bad Turk, 
but there are good Turks.' Not so with the Jews. Men find the 
bad among us easily enough — among what peoples are the bad 
not easily found ? — but they take the worst of us as samples of 
the best ; they take the lowest of us as presentations of the high- 
est; and they say, 'All Jews are alike.' If, doing what I was 
content to do here, because I was grateful for the past and have 
small need of money now, I had been a Christian, I could have 
done it, compromising no one but my individual self. But doing 
it as a Jew, I could not choose but compromise the Jews of all 
conditions and all countries. It is a little hard upon us, but it is 
the truth. I would that all our people remembered it ! Though 
I have little right to say so, seeing that it came home so late to 
me." 

The dolls' dressmaker sat holding the old man by the hand, and 
looking thoughtfully in his face. 

" Thus I reflected, I say, sitting that evening in my garden on 
the housetop. And passing the painful scene of that day in 
review before me many times, I always saw that the poor gentle- 
man believed the story readily, because I was one of the Jews — 
that you believed the story readily, my child, because I was one of 
the Jews — that the story itself first came into the invention of the 
originator thereof, because I was one of the Jews. This was 
the result of my having had you three before me, face to face, 
and seeing the tiling visibly presented as upon a theatre. Where- 
fore I perceived that the obligation was upon me to leave this 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 697 

service. But, Jenny, my dear," said Riah, breaking off, " I promised 
that you should pursue your questions, and I obstruct them." 

"On the contrary, godmother; my idea is as large now as a 
pumpkin — and you know what a pumpkin is, don't you? So 
you gave notice that you were going? Does that come next?" 
asked Miss Jenny, with a look of close attention. 

" I indited a letter to my master. Yes. To that effect." 

" And what said Tingling-Tossing-Aching-Screaming-Scratching- 
Smarter?" asked Miss Wren, with an unspeakable enjoyment in 
the utterance of those honourable titles and in the recollection of 
the pepper. 

"He held me to certain months of servitude, which were his 
lawful term of notice. They expire to-morrow. Upon their expi- 
ration — not before — I had meant to set myself right with my 
Cinderella." 

"My idea is getting so immense now," cried Miss Wren, clasp- 
ing her temples, " that my head won't hold it ! Listen, god- 
mother ; I am going to expound. Little Eyes (that's Screaming- 
Scratching- Smarter) owes you a heavy grudge for going. Little 
Eyes casts about how best to pay you off. Little Eyes thinks of 
Lizzie. Little Eyes says to himself, 'I'll find out where he has 
placed that girl, and I'll betray his secret because it's dear to him.' 
Perhaps Little Eyes thinks, ' I'll make love to her myself too ; ' 
but that I can't swear — all the rest I can. So, Little Eyes comes 
to me, and I go to Little Eyes. That's the way of it. And now 
the murder's all out, I'm sorry," added the doUs' dressmaker, rigid 
from head to foot with energy as she shook her little fist before 
her eyes, "that I didn't give him Cayenne pepper and chopped 
pickled Capsicum ! " 

This expression of regret being but partially intelligible to Mr. 
Riah, the old man reverted to the injuries Fledgeby had received, 
and hinted at the necessity of his at once going to tend that 
beaten cur. 

" Godmother, godmother, godmother ! " cried Miss Wren, irri- 
tably, " I really lose all patience with you. One would think you 
believed in the Good Samaritan. How can you be so inconsistent ? " 

"Jenny dear," began the old man, gently, "it is the custom of 
our people to help " 

" Oh ! Bother your people ! " interposed Miss Wren, with a toss 
of her head. " If your people don't know better than to go and 
help Little Eyes, it's a pity they ever got out of Egypt. Over 
and above that," she added, "he wouldn't take your help if you 
offered it. Too much ashamed. Wants to keep it close and quiet, 
and to keep you out of the way." 



698 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

They were still debating this point when a shadow darkened 
the entry, and the glass door was opened by a messenger who 
brought a letter unceremoniously addressed, " Riah." To which he 
said there was an answer wanted. 

The letter, which was scrawled in pencil uphill and downhill 
and round crooked corners, ran thus : 

" Old Riah, 

" Your accounts being all squared, go. Shut up the place, turn 
out directly, and send me the key by bearer. Go. You are an un- 
thankful dog of a Jew. Get out. 

The dolls' dressmaker found it delicious to trace the screaming 
and smarting of Little Eyes in the distorted writing of this epistle. 
She laughed over it and jeered at it in a convenient corner (to the 
great astonishment of the messenger) while the old man got his few 
goods together in a black bag. That done, the shutters of the 
upper windows closed, and the office blind pulled down, they issued 
forth upon the steps with the attendant messenger. There, while 
Miss Jenny held the bag, the old man locked the house door, and 
handed over the key to him ; who at once retired with the same. 

" Well, godmother," said Miss Wren, as they remained upon the 
steps together, looking at one another. " And so you're thrown 
upon the world ! " 

" It would appear so, Jenny, and somewhat suddenly." 

" Where are you going to seek your fortune ? " asked Miss 
Wren. 

The old man smiled, but looked about him with a look of hav- 
ing lost his way in life, which did not escape the dolls' dressmaker. 

" Verily, Jenny," said he, " the question is to the purpose, and 
more easily asked than answered. But as I have experience of 
the ready goodwill and good help of those who have given occupa- 
tion to Lizzie, I think I will seek them out for myself." 

" On foot ? " asked Miss Wren, with a chop. 

" Ay ! " said the old man. " Have I not my staff? " 

It was exactly because he had his staff, and presented so quaint 
an aspect, that she mistrusted his making the journey. 

" The best thing you can do," said Jenny, " for the time being, 
at all events, is to come home with me, godmother. Nobody's 
there but my bad child, and Lizzie's lodging stands empty." The 
old man, when satisfied that no inconvenience could be entailed on 
any one by his compliance, readily complied : and the singularly- 
assorted couple once more went through the streets together. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 699 

Now the bad child having been strictly charged by his parent 
to remain at home in her absence, of course went out ; and, being 
in the very last stage of mental decrepitude, went out with two 
objects ; firstly, to establish a claim he conceived himself to have 
upon any licensed victualler living, to be supplied with threepenny- 
worth of rum for nothing ; and secondly, to bestow some maudlin 
remorse on Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, and see what profit came of it. 
Stumblingly pursuing these two designs — they both meant rum, 
the only meaning of which he was capable — the degraded creature 
staggered into Covent Garden Market and there bivouacked, to 
have an attack of the trembles succeeded by an attack of the 
horrors, in a doorway. 

This Market of Covent Garden was quite out of the creature's 
line of road, but it had the attraction for him which it has for the 
worst of the solitary members of the drunken tribe. It may be 
the companionship of the niglitly stir, or it may be the compan- 
ionship of the gin and beer that slop about among carters and 
hucksters, or it may be the companionship of the trodden vegetable 
refuse, which is so like their own dress that perhaps they take the 
Market for a great wardrobe ; but be it what it may, you shall see 
no such individual drunkards on doorsteps anywhere, as there. 
Of dozing women-drunkards especially, you shall come upon such 
specimens there, in the morning sunlight, as you might seek out 
of doors in vain through London. Such stale vapid rejected 
cabbage-leaf and cabbage-stalk dress, such damaged-orange counte- 
nance, such squashed pulp of humanity, are open to the day no- 
where else. So the attraction of the Market drew Mr. Dolls to it, 
and he had out his two fits of trembles and horrors in a doorway 
on which a woman had had out her sodden nap a few hours 
before. 

There is a swarm of young savages always flitting about this 
same place, creeping off with fragments of orange-chests, and mouldy 
litter — Heaven knows into what holes they can convey them, 
having no home ! — whose bare feet fall with a blunt dull softness 
on the pavement as the policeman hunts them, and who are (per- 
haps for that reason) little heard by the Powers that be, whereas 
in top-boots they would make a deafening clatter. These, delight- 
ing in the trembles and the horrors of Mr. Dolls, as in a gratui- 
tous drama, flocked about him in his doorway, butted at him, 
leaped at him, and pelted him. Hence, when he came out of his 
invalid retirement and shook off that ragged train, he was much 
bespattered, and in worse case than ever. But, not yet at his 
worst ; for, going into a public-house, and being supplied in stress 
of business with his rum, and seeking to vanish without payment, 



700 OUK MUTUAL FRIEND. 

he was collared, searched, found penniless, and admonished not to 
try that again, by having a pail of dirty water cast over him. 
This application superinduced another fit of the trembles; after 
which Mr. Dolls, as finding himself in good cue for making a call 
on a professional friend, addressed himself to the Temple. 

There was nobody at the Chambers but Young Blight. That 
discreet youth, sensible of a certain incongruity in the association 
of such a client with the business that might be coming some day, 
with the best intentions temporised with Dolls, and offered a shil- 
ling for coach hire home. Mr. Dolls, accepting the shilling, 
promptly laid it out in two threepennyworths of conspiracy against 
his life, and two threepennyworths of raging repentance. Re- 
turning to the Chambers with which burden, he was descried 
coming round into the court, by the wary Young Blight watching 
from the window : who instantly closed the outer door, and left 
the miserable object to expend his fury on the panels. 

The more the door resisted him, the more dangerous and immi- 
nent became that bloody conspiracy against his life. Force of 
police arriving, he recognised in them the conspirators, and laid 
about him hoarsely, fiercely, staringly, convulsively, foamingly. A 
humble machine, familiar to the conspirators and called by the 
expressive name of Stretcher, being unavoidably sent for, he was 
rendered a harmless bundle of torn rags by being strapped down 
upon it, with voice and consciousness gone out of him, and life 
fast going. As this machine was borne out at the Temple gate by 
four men, the poor little dolls' dressmaker and her Jewish friend 
were coming up the street, 

" Let us see what it is," cried the dressmaker. " Let us make 
haste and look, godmother." 

The brisk little crutch-stick was but too brisk. " Oh, gentle- 
men, gentlemen, he belongs to me ! " 

" Belongs to you ? " said the head of the party, stopping it. 

" Oh yes, dear gentlemen, he's my child, out without leave. 
My poor bad, bad boy ! and he don't know me, he don't know me ! 
Oh, what shall I do," cried the little creature, wildly beating her 
hands together, " when my own child don't know me ! " 

The head of the party looked (as well he might) to the old man 
for explanation. He whispered, as the dolls' dressmaker bent 
over the exhausted form and vainly tried to extract some sign of 
recognition from it : " It's her drunken father." 

As the load was put down in the street, Riah drew the head of 
the party aside, and wliispered that he thought the man was dying. 
" No, surely not 1 " returned the other. But he became less con- 
fident, on looking, and directed the bearers to "bring him to the 
nearest doctor's shop." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 701 

Thither he was brought ; the window becoming from within, a 
wall of faces, deformed into all kinds of shapes through the agency 
of globular red bottles, green bottles, blue bottles, and other coloured 
bottles. A ghastly light shining upon him that he didn't need, the 
beast so furious but a few minutes gone, was quiet enough now, 
with a strange mysterious writing on his face, reflected from one of 
the great bottles, as if Death had marked him : "Mine." 

The medical testimony was more precise and more to the purpose 
than it sometimes is in a Court of Justice. " You had better send 
for something to cover it. All's over." 

Therefore, the police sent for something to cover it, and it was 
covered and borne through the streets, the people falling away. 
After it, went the dolls' dressmaker, hiding her face in the Jewish 
skirts, and clinging to them with one hand, while with the other 
she plied her stick. It was carried home, and, by reason that the 
staircase was very narrow, it was put down in the parlour — the 
little working-bench being set aside to make room for it — and 
there, in the midst of the dolls with no speculation in their eyes, 
lay Mr. Dolls with no speculation in his. 

Many flaunting dolls had to be gaily dressed, before the money 
was in the dressmaker's pocket to get mourning for Mr. Dolls. 
As the old man, Riah, sat by, helping her in such small ways as 
he could, he found it difficult to make out whether she really did 
realise that the deceased had been her father. 

" If my poor boy," she would say, " had been brought up better, 
he might have done better. Not that I reproach myself. I hope 
I have no cause for that." 

" None indeed, Jenny, I am very certain." 

"Thank you, godmother. It cheers me to hear you say so. 
But you see it is so hard to bring up a child well, when you work, 
work, work, all day. When he was out of employment, I couldn't 
always keep him near me. He got fractious and nervous, and I 
was obliged to let him go into the streets. And he never did well 
in the streets, he never did well out of sight. How often it hap- 
pens with children ! " 

" Too often, even in this sad sense ! " thought the old man. 

" How can I say what I might have turned out myself, but for 
my back having been so bad and my legs so queer when I was 
young ! " the dressmaker would go on. "I had nothing to do but 
work, and so I worked. I couldn't play. But my poor unfortu- 
nate child could play, and it turned out the worse for him." 

" And not for him alone, Jenny." 

" Well ! I don't know, godmother. He suffered heavily, did my 
unfortunate boy. He was very, very ill sometimes. And I called 



702 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

him a quantity of names ; " shaking her head over her work, and 
dropping tears. " I don't know that his going wrong was much 
the worse for me. If it ever was, let us forget it." 

" You are a good girl, you are a patient girl." 

"As for patience," she would reply with a shrug, "not much of 
that, godmother. If I had been patient, I should never have called 
him names. But I hope I did it for his good. And besides, I felt 
my responsibility as a mother so much. I tried reasoning, and 
reasoning failed. I tried coaxing, and coaxing failed. I tried 
scolding, and scolding failed. But I was bound to try everything, 
you know, with such a charge upon my hands. Where would 
have been my duty to my poor lost boy, if I had not tried every- 
thing ! " 

With such talk, mostly in a cheerful tone on the part of the 
industrious little creature, the day-work and the night-work were 
beguiled until enough of smart dolls had gone forth to bring into 
the kitchen, where the working-bench now stood, the sombre stuff 
that the occasion required, and to bring into the house the other 
sombre preparations. "And now," said Miss Jenny, "having 
knocked off my rosy-cheeked young friends. 111 knock off my 
white-cheeked self." This referred to making her own dress, 
which at last was done. " The disadvantage of making for your- 
self," said Miss Jenny, as she stood upon a chair to look at the 
result in the glass, "is, that you can't charge anybody else for the 
job, and the advantage is, that you haven't to go out to try on. 
Humph ! Very fair indeed ! If He could see me now (whoever 
he is) I hope he wouldn't repent of his bargain ! " 

The simple arrangements were of her own making, and were 
stated to Riah thus : 

" I mean to go alone, godmother, in my usual carriage, and you'll 
be so kind as keep house while I am gone. It's not far off. 
And when I return, we'll have a cup of tea and a chat over future 
arrangements. It's a very plain last house that I have been able 
to give my poor unfortunate boy ; but he'll accept the will for the 
deed, if he knows anything about it, and if he doesn't know any- 
thing about it," with a sob, and wiping her eyes, " why, it won't 
matter to him. I see the service in the Prayer-book says, that we 
brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can take 
nothing out. It comforts me for not being able to hire a lot of 
stupid undertaker's things for my poor child, and seeming as if I 
was trying to smuggle 'em out of this world with him, when of 
course I must break down in the attempt, and bring 'em all back 
again. As it is, there'll be nothing to biing back but me, and 
that's quite consistent, for I shan't be brought back some day ! " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 703 

After that previous carrying of him in the streets, the wretched 
old fellow seemed to be twice buried. He was taken on the 
shoulders of half-a-dozen blossom-faced men, who shuffled with 
him to the churchyard, and who were preceded by another blossom- 
faced man, affecting a stately stalk, as if he were a Policeman of 
the D(eath) Division, and ceremoniously pretending not to know 
his intimate acquaintances as he led the pageant. Yet, the spec- 
tacle of only one little mourner hobbling after caused many people 
to turn their heads with a look of interest. 

At last the troublesome deceased was got into the ground, to be 
buried no more, and the stately stalker stalked back before the soli- 
tary dressmaker, as if she were bound in honour to have no notion 
of the way home. Those Furies, the conventionalities, being thus 
appeased, he left her. 

" I must have a very short cry, godmother, before I cheer up for 
good," said the little creature, coming in. "Because after all a 
child is a child, you know." 

It was a longer cry than might have been expected. Howbeit, 
it wore itself out in a shadowy corner, and then the dressmaker 
came forth, and washed her face, and made the tea. "You 
wouldn't mind my cutting out something while we are at tea, 
would you 1 " she asked her Jewish friend, with a coaxing air. 

"Cinderella, dear child," the old man expostulated, "will you 
never rest 1 " 

"Oh! It's not work, cutting out a pattern isn't," said Miss 
Jenny, with her busy little scissors already snipping at some paper. 
" The truth is, godmother, I want to fix it while I have it correct 
in my mind." 

" Have you seen it to-day, then 1 " asked Riah. 

^'Yes, godmother. Saw it just now. It's a surplice, that's 
what it is. Thing our clergymen wear, you know," explained 
Miss Jenny, in consideration of his professing another faith. 

" And what have you to do with that, Jenny ? " 

"Why, godmother," repHed the dressmaker, "you must know 
that we Professors who live upon our taste and invention, are 
obliged to keep our eyes always open. And you know already that 
I have many extra expenses to meet just now. So, it came into 
my head while I was weeping at my poor boy's grave, that some- 
thing in my way might be done with a clergyman." 

" What can be done ? " asked the old man. 

" Not a funeral, never fear ! " returned Miss Jenny, anticipating 
his objection with a nod. "The public don't like to be made mel- 
ancholy, I know very well. I am seldom called upon to put my 
young friends into mourning ; not into real mourning, that is ; 



704 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Court mourning they are rather proud of. But a doll clergyinan, 
my dear, — glossy black curls and whiskers, — uniting two of my 
young friends in matrimony," said Miss Jenny, shaking her fore- 
finger, " is quite another aifair. If you don't see those three at 
the altar in Bond Street, in a jiffy, my name's Jack Robinson ! " 

With her expert little ways in sharp action, she had got a doll 
into whitey-brown paper orders, before the meal was over, and was 
displaying it for the edification of the Jewish mind, when a knock 
was heard at the street door. Riah went to open it, and presently 
came back, ushering in, with a grave and courteous air that sat so 
well upon him, a gentleman. 

The gentleman was a stranger to the dressmaker ; but even in 
the moment of his casting his eyes upon her, there was something 
in his manner which brought to her remembrance Mr. Eugene 
Wrayburn. 

"Pardon me," said the gentleman. "You are the dolls' dress- 
maker." 

"I am the dolls' dressmaker, sir." 

"Lizzie Hexam's friend?" 

" Yes, sir," replied Miss Jenny, instantly on the defensive. " And 
Lizzie Hexam's friend." 

" Here is a note from her, entreating you to accede to the request 
of Mr. Mortimer Lightwood, the bearer. Mr. Riah chances to know 
that I am Mr. Mortimer Lightwood, and will tell you so." 

Riah bent his head in corroboration. 

"Will you read the note?" 

" It's very short," said Jenny with a look of wonder, when she 
had read it. 

"There was no time to make it longer. Time was so very 
precious. My dear friend, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, is dying." 

The dressmaker clasped her hands, and uttered a little piteous cry. 

" Is dying," repeated Lightwood, with emotion, " at some distance 
from here. He is sinking under injuries received at the hands of 
a villain who attacked him in the dark. I come straight from his 
bedside. He is almost always insensible. In a short restless inter- 
val of sensibility, or partial sensibility, I made out that he asked 
for you to be brought to sit by him. Hardly relying on my own 
interpretation of the indistinct sounds he made, I caused Lizzie to 
hear them. We were both sure that he asked for you." 

The dressmaker, with her hands still clasped, looked affrightedly 
from the one to the other of her two companions. 

" If you delay, he may die with his request ungratified, with his 
last wish — intrusted to me — we have long been much more than 
brothers — unfulfilled. I shall break down, if I try to say more." 




/I/' ^ t J/^' 



2z 



706 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

In a few moments the black bonnet and the crutch-stick were 
on duty, the good Jew was left in possession of the house, and the 
dolls' dressmaker, side by side in a chaise with Mortimer Light- 
wood, was i^osting out of town. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE dolls' dressmaker DISCOVERS A WORD. 

A DARKENED and hushed room ; the river outside the windows 
flowing on to the vast ocean ; a figure on the bed, swathed and 
bandaged and bound, lying helpless on its back, with its two use- 
less arms in splints at its sides. Only two days of usage so famil- 
iarised the little dressmaker with this scene, that it held the place 
occupied two days ago by the recollections of years. 

He had scarcely moved since her arrival. Sometimes his eyes 
were open, sometimes closed. When they were open, there was no 
meaning in their unwinking stare at one spot straight before them, 
unless for a moment the brow knitted into a faint expression of 
anger, or surprise. Then, Mortimer Lightwood would speak to 
him, and on occasions he would be so far roused as to make an 
attempt to pronounce his friend's name. But, in an instant con- 
sciousness was gone again, and no spirit of Eugene was in Eugene's 
crushed outer form. 

They provided Jenny with materials for plying her work, and 
she had a little table placed at the foot of his bed. Sitting there, 
with her rich shower of hair falling over the chair-back, they hoped 
she might attract his notice. With the same object, she would 
sing, just above her breath, when he opened his eyes, or she saw 
his brow knit into that faint expression, so evanescent that it was 
like a shape made in water. But as yet he had not heeded. The 
"they" here mentioned were the medical attendant; Lizzie, who 
was there in all her intervals of rest ; and Lightwood, who never 
left him. 

The two days became three, and the three days became four. 
At length, quite unexpectedly, he said something in a whisper. 

"What was it, my dear Eugene?" 

"Will you, Mortimer " 

"Willi ?" 

"Send for her?" 

" My dear fellow, she is here." 

Quite unconscious of the long blank, he supposed that they were 
still speaking together. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 707 

The little dressmaker stood up at the foot of the bed, humming 
her song, and nodded to him brightly. "I can't shake hands, 
Jenny," said Eugene, with something of his old look; "but I am 
very glad to see you." 

Mortimer repeated this to her, for it could only be made out by 
bending over him and closely watching his attempts to say it. In 
a little while, he added : 

" Ask her if she has seen the children 1 " 

Mortimer could not understand this, neither could Jenny herself, 
until he added : 

" Ask her if she has smelt the flowers ? " 

" Oh ! I know ! " cried Jenny. " I understand him now ! " Then, 
Lightwood yielded his place to her quick approach, and she said, 
bending over the bed, with that better look : "You mean my long 
bright slanting rows of children, who used to bring me ease and rest ? 
You mean the children, who used to take me up, and make me light ? " 

Eugene smiled, "Yes." 

" I have not seen them since I saw you. I never see them now, 
but I am hardly ever in pain now." 

"It was a pretty fancy," said Eugene. 

" But I have heard my birds sing," cried the little creature, " and 
I have smelt my flowers. Yes, indeed I have ! And botli were 
most beautiful and most Divine ! " 

" Stay and help to nurse me," said Eugene, quietly. " I should 
like you to have the fancy here, before I die." 

She touched his lips with her hand, and shaded her eyes with 
that same hand as she went back to her work and her little low 
song. He heard the song with evident pleasure, until she allowed 
it gradually to sink away into silence. 

"Mortimer." 

" My dear Eugene." 

" If you can give me anything to keep me here for only a few 
minutes " 

" To keep you here, Eugene ? " 

"To prevent my wandering away I don't know where — for I 
begin to be sensible that I have just come back, and that I shall 
lose myself again — do so, dear boy ! " 

Mortimer gave him such stimulants as could be given him with 
safety (they were always at hand, ready), and bending over him 
once more, was about to caution him, when he said : 

" Don't tell me not to speak, for I must speak. If you knew the 
harassing anxiety that gnaws and wears me when I am wandering 
in those places — where are those endless places, Mortimer ? They 
must be at an immense distance ! " 



708 OUK MUTUAL FRIEND. 

He saw in his friend's face that he was losing himself; for he 
added after a moment: "Don't be afraid — I am not gone yet. 
What was it?" 

" You wanted to tell me something, Eugene. My poor dear fel- 
low, you wanted to say something to your old friend — to the friend 
who has always loved you, admired you, imitated you, founded him- 
self upon you, been nothing without you, and who, God knows, 
would be here in your place if he could." 

" Tut, tut ! " said Eugene with a tender glance as the other put 
his hand before his face. " I am not worth it. I acknowledge that 
I like it, dear boy, but I am not worth it. This attack, my dear 
Mortimer; this murder " 

His friend leaned over him with renewed attention, saying : 
"You and I suspect some one." 

" More than suspect. But, Mortimer, while I lie here, and when 
I lie here no longer, I trust to you that the perpetrator is never 
brought to justice." 

"Eugene?" 

"Her innocent reputation would be ruined, my friend. She 
would be punished, not he. I have wronged her enough in 
fact : I have wronged her still more in intention. You recollect 
what pavement is said to be made of good intentions. It is 
made of bad intentions too. Mortimer, I am lying on it, and I 
know ! " 

" Be comforted, my dear Eugene." 

" I will, when you have promised me. Dear Mortimer, the man 
must never be pursued. If he should be accused, you must keep 
him silent and save him. Don't think of avenging me ; think only 
of hushing the story and protecting her. You can confuse the case, 
and turn aside the circumstances. Listen to what I say to you. 
It was not the schoolmaster, Bradley Headstone. Do you hear me ? 
Twice ; it was not the schoolmaster, Bradley Headstone. Do you 
hear me ? Three times ; it was not the schoolmaster, Bradley 
Headstone." 

He stopped, exhausted. His speech had been whispered, broken, 
and indistinct ; but by a great eftbi't he had made it plain enough 
to be unmistakable. 

"Dear fellow, I am wandering away. Stay me for another 
moment, if you can." 

Lightwood lifted his head at the neck, and put a wine-glass to 
his lips. He rallied. 

" I don't know how long ago it was done, whether weeks, days, 
or hours. No matter. There is inquiry on foot, and pursuit. Say ! 
Is there not 1 " 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 709 

"Yes." 

" Check it ; divert it ! Don't let her be brought in question. 
Shield her. The guilty man, brought to justice, would poison her 
name. Let the guilty man go unpunished. Lizzie and my rep- 
aration befoi'e all ! Promise me ! " 

" Eugene, I do. I promise you." 

In the act of turning his eyes gratefully towards his friend, he 
wandered away. His eyes stood still, and settled into that former 
intent unmeaning stare. 

Hours and hours, days and nights, he remained in this same con- 
dition. There were times when he would calmly speak to his friend 
after a long period of unconsciousness, and would say he was better, 
and would ask for something. Before it could be given him, he 
would be gone again. 

The dolls' dressmaker, all softened compassion now, watched him 
with an earnestness that never relaxed. She would regularly change 
the ice, or the cooling spirit, on his head, and would keep her ear 
at the pillow betweenwhiles, listening for any faint words that fell 
from him in his wanderings. It was amazing through how many 
hours at a time she would remain beside him, in a crouching atti- 
tude, attentive to his slightest moan. As he could not move a hand, 
he could make no sign of distress ; but, through this close watching 
(if through no secret sympathy or power) the little creature at- 
tained an understanding of him that Lightwood did not possess. 
Mortimer would often turn to her, as if she were an interpreter be- 
tween this sentient world and the insensible man ; and she would 
change the dressing of a wound, or ease a ligature, or turn his 
face, or alter the pressure of the bedclothes on him, with an ab- 
solute certainty of doing right. The natural lightness and del- 
icacy of touch which had become very refined by practice in her 
miniature work, no doubt was involved in this ; but her perception 
was at least as fine. 

The one word, Lizzie, he muttered millions of times. In a cer- 
tain phase of his distressful state, which was the worst to those 
who tended him, he would roll his head upon the pillow, inces- 
santly repeating the name in a hurried and impatient manner, with 
the misery of a disturbed mind, and the monotony of a machine. 
Equally, when he lay still and staring, he would repeat it for hours 
without cessation, but then, always in a tone of subdued warning 
and horror. Her presence and her touch upon his breast or face 
would often stop this, and then they learned to expect that he 
would for some time remain still, with his eyes closed, and that 
he would be conscious on opening them. But, the heavy disappoint- 
ment of their hope — revived by the welcome silence of the room 



710 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

— was, that his spirit would glide away again and be lost, in the 
moment of their joy that it was there. 

This frequent rising of a drowning man from the deep, to sink 
again, was dreadful to the beholders. But, gradually the change 
stole upon him that it became dreadful to himself. His desire to 
impart something that was on his mind, his unspeakable yearning 
to have speech with his friend and make a communication to him, so 
troubled him when he recovered consciousness, that its term was 
thereby shortened. As the man rising from the deep would disap- 
pear the sooner for fighting with the water, so he in his desperate 
struggle went down again. 

One afternoon, when he had been lying still, and Lizzie, unrec- 
ognised, had just stolen out of the room to pursue her occupation, 
he uttered Lightwood's name. 

"My dear Eugene, I am here." 

" How long is this to last, Mortimer ? " 

Light wood shook his head. " Still, Eugene, you are no worse 
than you were." 

" But I know there's no hope. Yet I pray it may last long 
enough for you to do me one last service, and for me to do one last 
action. Keep me here a few moments, Mortimer. Try, try ! " 

His friend gave him what aid he could, and encouraged him to 
believe that he was more composed, though even then his eyes 
were losing the expression they so rarely recovered. 

"Hold me here, dear fellow, if you can. Stop my wandering 
away. I am going ! " 

" Not yet, not yet. Tell me, dear Eugene, what is it I shall do? " 

" Keep me here for only a single minute. I am going away again. 
Don't let me go. Hear me speak first. Stop me — stop me ! " 

"My poor Eugene, try to be calm." 

" I do try. I try so hard. If you only knew how hard ! Don't 
let me wander till I have spoken. Give me a little more wine." 

Lightwood complied. Eugene, with a most pathetic struggle 
against the unconsciousness that was coming over him, and with a 
look of appeal that affected his friend profoundly, said : 

" You can leave me with Jenny, while you speak to her and tell 
her what I beseech of her. You can leave me with Jenny, while 
you are gone. There's not much for you to do. You won't be long 
away." 

" No, no, no. But tell me what it is that I shall do, Eugene ! " 

" I am going ! You can't hold me." 

"Tell me in a word, Eugene ! " 

His eyes were fixed again, and the only word that came from his 
lips was the word millions of time repeated. Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 711 

But the watchful little dressmaker had been vigilant as ever in 
her watch, and she now came up and touched Lightwood's arm as 
he looked down at his friend, despairingly. 

" Hush ! " she said, with her finger on her lips. " His eyes are 
closing. He'll be conscious when he next opens them. Shall I 
give you a leading word to say to him ? " 

" Oh, Jenny, if you could only give me the right word ! " 

"lean. Stoop down." 

He stooped, and she whispered in his ear. She whispered in his 
ear one short word of a single syllable. Lightwood started, and 
looked at her. 

"Try it," said the little creature, with an excited and exultant 
face. She then bent over the unconscious man, and, for the first 
time, kissed him on the cheek, and kissed the poor maimed hand 
that was nearest her. Then, she withdrew to the foot of the bed. 

Some two hours afterwards, Mortimer Lightwood saw his friend's 
consciousness come back, and instantly, but very tranquilly, bent 
over him. 

"Don't speak, Eugene. Do no more than look at me, and 
listen to me. You follow what I say 1 " 

He moved his head in assent. 

"I am going on from the point where we broke off. Is the 
word we should soon have come to — is it — Wife ? " 

" Oh, God bless you, Mortimer ! " 

" Hush ! don't be agitated. Don't speak. Hear me, dear Eugene. 
Your mind will be more at peace, lying here, if you make Lizzie 
your wife. You wish me to speak to her, and tell her so, and 
entreat her to be your wife. You ask her to kneel at this bedside 
and be married to you, that your reparation may be complete. Is 
that so?" 

"Yes. God bless you! Yes." 

" It shall be done, Eugene. Trust it to me. I shall have to go 
away for some few hours, to give effect to your wishes. You see 
this is unavoidable ? " 

" Dear friend, I said so." 

"True. But I had not the clue then. How do you think I 
got it 1 " 

Glancing wistfully around, Eugene saw Miss Jenny at the foot 
of the bed, looking at him with her elbows on the bed, and her 
head upon her hands. There was a trace of his whimsical air upon 
him, as he tried to smile at her. 

"Yes, indeed," said Lightwood, "the discovery was hers. 
Observe, my dear Eugene ; while I am away you will know that 
I have discharged my trust with Lizzie, by finding her here, in my 



712 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

present place at your bedside, to leave you no more, A final word 
before I go. This is the right course of a true man, Eugene. And 
I solemnly believe, with all my soul, that if Providence should 
mercifully restore you to us, you will be blessed with a noble wife 
in the preserver of your life, whom you will dearly love." 

" Amen. I am sure of that. But I shall not come through it, 
Mortimer." 

"You will not be the less hopeful or less strong for this, 
Eugene." 

"No. Touch my face with yours, in case I should not hold out 
till you come back. I love you, Mortimer. Don't be uneasy for 
me, while you are gone. If my dear brave girl will take me, I feel 
persuaded that I shall live long enough to be married, dear fellow." 

Miss Jenny gave up altogether on this parting taking place 
between the friends, and sitting with her back towards the bed in 
the bower made by her bright hair, wept heartily, though noise- 
lessly. Mortimer Lightwood was soon gone. As the evening light 
lengthened the heavy reflections of the trees in the river, another 
figure came with a soft step into the sick room. 

" Is he conscious 1 " asked the little dressmaker, as the figure took 
its station by the pillow. For, Jenny had given place to it immedi- 
ately, and could not see the sufterer's face, in the dark room, from 
her new and removed position. 

" He is conscious, Jenny," murmured Eugene for himself. " He 
knows his wife." 



CHAPTER XI. 

EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER'S DISCOVERY. 

Mrs. John Rokesmith sat at needlework in her neat little 
room, beside a basket of neat little articles of clothing, which pre- 
sented so much of the appearance of being in the dolls' dressmaker's 
way of business, that one might have supposed she was going to set 
up in opposition to Miss Wren. Whether the Complete British 
Family Housewife had imparted sage counsel anent them, did not 
appear, but probably not, as that cloudy oracle was nowhere 
visible. For certain, however, Mrs. John Rokesmith stitched at 
them with so dexterous a hand, that she must have taken lessons 
of somebody. Love is in all things a most wonderful teacher, and 
perhaps love (from a pictorial point of view, with nothing on but a 
thimble), had been teaching tliis branch of needlework to Mrs. John 
Rokesmith. 

It was near John's time for coming home, but as Mrs. John was 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 713 

desirous to finish a special triumph of her skill before dinner, she 
did not go out to meet him. Placidly, though rather consequen- 
tially smiling, she sat stitching away with a regular sound, like a 
sort of dimpled little charming Dresden-china clock by the very 
best maker. 

A knock at the door, and a ring at the bell. Not John ; or 
Bella would have flown out to meet him. Then who, if not John 1 
Bella was asking herself the question, when that fluttering little 
fool of a servant fluttered in, saying, " Mr. Lightwood ! " 

Oh good gracious ! 

Bella had but time to throw a handkerchief over the basket, 
when Mr. Lightwood made his bow. There was something amiss 
with Mr. Lightwood, for he was strangely grave and looked ill. 

With a brief reference to the happy time when it had been his 
privilege to know Mrs. Rokesmith as Miss Wilfer, Mr. Lightwood 
explained what was amiss with him and why he came. He came 
bearing Lizzie Hexam's earnest hope that Mrs. John Rokesmith 
would see her married. 

Bella was so fluttered by the request, and by the short narrative 
he had feelingly given her, that there never was a more timely 
smelling-bottle than John's knock. "My husband," said Bella; 
" I'll bring him in." 

But, that turned out to be more easily said than done ; for, the 
instant she mentioned Mr. Lightwood's name, John stopped, with 
his hand upon the lock of the room door. 

"Come up-stairs, my darling." 

Bella was amazed by the flush in his face, and by his sudden 
turning away. " What can it mean 1 " she thought, as she accom- 
panied him up-stairs. 

"Now, my life," said John, taking her on his knee, "tell me all 
about it." 

All very well to say, " Tell me all about it ; " but John was very 
much confused. His attention evidently trailed off, now and then, 
even while Bella told him all about it. Yet she knew that he took 
a great interest in Lizzie and her fortunes. What could it mean ? 

" You will come to this marriage with me, John dear 1 " 

" N — no, my love : I can't do that." 

" You can't do that, John ? " 

"No, my dear, it's quite out of the question. Not to be 
thought of." 

" Am I to go alone, John ? " 

"No, my dear, you will go with Mr. Lightwood." 

" Don't you think it is time we went down to Mr. Lightwood, 
John dear ? " Bella insinuated. 



714 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" My darling, it's almost time you went, but I must ask you to 
excuse me to him altogether." 

"You never mean, John dear, that you are not going to see 
him? Why he knows you have come home. I told him so." 

" That's a little unfortunate, but it can't be helped. Unfortu- 
nate or fortunate, I positively cannot see him, my love." 

Bella cast about in her mind what could be his reason for this 
unaccountable behaviour, as she sat on his knee looking at him in 
astonishment and pouting a little. A weak reason presented itself. 

"John dear, you never can be jealous of Mr. Lightwood?" 

"Why, my precious child," returned her husband, laughing out- 
right : " how could I be jealous of him 1 Why should I be jealous 
of him 1 " 

" Because, you know, John," pursued Bella, pouting a little more, 
"though he did rather admire me once, it was not my fault." 

"It was your fault that I admired you," returned her husband, 
with a look of pride in her, "and why not your fault that he ad- 
mired you? But, I jealous on that account? Why, I must go 
distracted for life, if I turned jealous of eveiy one who used to 
find my wife beautiful and winning ! " 

"I am half angry with you, John dear," said Bella, laughing a 
little, " and half pleased with you ; because you are such a stupid 
old fellow, and yet you say nice things, as if you meant them. 
Don't be mysterious, sir. What harm do you know of Mr. Light- 
wood ? " 

"None, my love." 

" What has he ever done to you, John ? " 

" He has never done anything to me, my dear. I know no more 
against him than I know against Mr. Wrayburn; he has never done 
anything to me ; neither has Mr. Wrayburn. And yet I have ex- 
actly the same objection to both of them." 

" Oh, John ! " retorted Bella, as if she were giving him up for a 
bad job, as she used to give up herself. "You are nothing better 
than a sphinx ! And a married sphinx isn't a — isn't a nice con- 
fidential husband," said Bella, in a tone of injury. 

" Bella, my life," said John Rokesmith, touching her cheek, with 
a grave smile, as she cast down her eyes and pouted again; "look 
at me. I want to speak to you." 

"In earnest. Blue Beard of the secret chamber?" asked Bella, 
clearing her pretty face. 

" In earnest. And I confess to the secret chamber. Don't you 
remember that you asked me not to declare what I thought of your 
higher qualities until you had been tried ? " 

"Yes, John, dear. And I fully meant it, and I fully mean it." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 715 

" The time will come, my darling — I am no prophet, but I say- 
so, — when you ivill be tried. The time will come, I think, when 
you will undergo a trial through which you will never pass quite 
triumphantly for me, unless you can put perfect faith in me." 

" Then you may be sure of me, John dear, for I can put perfect 
faith in you, and I do, and I always, always will. Don't judge 
me by a little thing like this, John. In little things, I am a little 
thing myself — I always was. But in great things, I hope not ; I 
don't mean to boast, John dear, but I hope not ! " 

He was even better convinced of the truth of what she said than 
she was, as he felt her loving arms about him. If the Golden Dust- 
man's riches had been his to stake, he would have staked them 
to the last farthing on the fidelity through good and evil of her 
affectionate and trusting heart. 

" Now, I'll go down to, and go away with, Mr. Lightwood," 
said Bella, springing up. " You are the most creasing and tum- 
bling Clumsy-Boots of a packer, John, that ever was ; but if you're 
quite good, and will promise never to do so any more (though I 
don't know what you have done !) you may pack me a little bag 
for a night, while I get my bonnet on." 

He gaily complied, and she tied her dimpled chin up, and shook 
her head into her bonnet, and pulled out the bows of her bonnet- 
strings, and got her gloves on, finger by finger, and finally got 
them on her little plump hands, and bade him good bye and went 
down. Mr. Lightwood's impatience was much relieved when he 
found her dressed for departure. 

" Mr. Rokesmith goes wdth us 1 " he said, hesitating, with a look 
towards the door. 

" Oh, I forgot ! " replied Bella. " His best compliments. His 
face is swollen to the size of two faces, and he is to go to bed 
directly, poor fellow, to wait for the doctor, who is coming to lance 
him." 

"It is curious," observed Lightwood, "that I have never yet 
seen Mr. Rokesmith, though we have been engaged in the same 
affairs." 

" Really ? " said the unblushing Bella. 

"I begin to think," observed Lightwood, "that I never shall 
see him." 

" These things happen so oddly sometimes," said Bella with a 
steady countenance, " that there seems a kind of fatality in them. 
But I am quite ready, Mr. Lightwood." 

They started directly, in a little carriage that Lightwood had 
brought with him from never-to-be-forgotten Greenwich ; and from 
Greenwich they started directly for London ; and in London they 



716 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

waited at a railway station until such time as the Reverend Frank 
Milvey, and Margaretta his wife, with whom Mortimer Lightwood 
had been already in conference, should come and join them. 

That worthy couple were delayed by a portentous old parishioner 
of the female gender, who was one of the plagues of their lives, and 
with whom they bore with most exemplary sweetness and good- 
humour, notwithstanding her having an infection of absurdity about 
her, that communicated itself to everything with which, and every- 
body with whom, she came in contact. She was a member of the 
Reverend Frank's congregation, and made a point of distinguishing 
herself in that body, by conspicuously weeping at everything, how- 
ever cheering, said by the Reverend Frank in his public ministra- 
tion ; also by applying to herself the various lamentations of David, 
and complaining in a personally injured manner (much in arrear of 
the clerk and the rest of the respondents) that her enemies were 
digging pitfalls about her, and breaking her with rods of iron. 
Indeed, this old widow discharged herself of that portion of the 
Morning and Evening Service as if she were lodging a complaint 
on oath and applying for a warrant before a magistrate. But this 
was not her most inconvenient characteristic, for that took the form 
of an impression, usually recurring in inclement weather and at 
about daybreak, that she had something on her mind and stood in 
immediate need of the Reverend Frank to come and take it off. 
Many a time had that kind creature got up, and gone out to 
Mrs. Sprodgkin (such was the disciple's name), suppressing a strong 
sense of her comicality by his strong sense of duty, and perfectly 
knowing that nothing but a cold would come of it. However, 
beyond themselves, the Reverend Frank Milvey and Mrs. Milvey 
seldom hinted that Mrs. Spodgkin was hardly worth the trouble 
she gave ; but both made the best of her, as they did of all their 
troubles. 

This very exacting member of the fold appeared to be endowed 
with a sixth sense, in regard of knowing when the Rev. Frank 
Milvey least desired her company, and with promptitude appear- 
ing in his little hall. Consequently, when the Reverend Frank 
had willingly engaged that he and his wife would accompany Light- 
wood back, he said, as a matter of course : "We must make haste 
to get out, Margaretta, my dear, or we shall be descended on by 
Mrs. Sprodgkin." To which Mrs. Milvey replied, in her pleasantly 
emphatic way, " Oh ^es, for she is such a marplot, Frank, and does 
worry so ! " Words that were scarcely uttered when their theme 
was announced as in faithful attendance below, desiring counsel on 
a spiritual matter. The points on which Mrs. Sprodgkin sought 
elucidation being seldom of a pressing nature (as Who begat Whom, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 717 

or some information concerning the Amorites), Mrs, Milvey on 
this special occasion resorted to the device of buying her off with 
a present of tea and sugar, and a loaf and butter. These gifts 
Mrs. Sprodgkin accepted, but still insisted on dutifully remaining 
in the hall, to curtsey to the Reverend Frank as he came forth. 
Who, incautiously saying in his genial manner, " Well, Sally, there 
you are ! " involved himself in a discursive address from Mrs. 
Sprodgkin, revolving around the result that she regarded tea and 
sugar in the light of myrrh and frankincense, and considered bread 
and butter identical with locusts and wild honey. Having com- 
municated this edifying piece of information, Mrs. Sprodgkin was 
left still unadjourned in the hall, and Mr. and Mrs. Milvey hurried 
in a heated condition to the railway station. All of which is here 
recorded to the honour of that good Christian pair, representatives 
of hundreds of other good Christian pairs as conscientious and as 
useful, who merge the smallness of their work in its greatness, and 
feel in no danger of losing dignity when they adapt themselves to 
incomprehensible humbugs. 

" Detained at the last moment by one who had a claim upon 
me," was the Reverend Frank's apology to Lightwood, taking no 
thought to himself To which Mrs. Milvey added, taking thought 
for him, like the championing little wife she was ; "Oh yes, detained 
at the last moment. But as to the claim, Frank, I must say that 
I do think you are over-considerate sometimes, and allow that to be 
a little abused." 

Bella felt conscious, in spite of her late pledge for herself, that 
her husband's absence would give disagreeable occasion for surprise 
to the Milveys. Nor could she appear quite at her ease when 
Mrs. Milvey asked : 

"How is Mr. Rokesmith, and is he gone before us, or does he 
follow us 1 " 

It becoming necessary, upon this, to send him to beg again and 
hold him in waiting to be lanced again, Bella did it. But not half 
as well on the second occasion as on the first; for, a twice-told 
white one, seems almost to become a black one when you are not 
used to it. 

"Oh dear/'' said Mrs. Milvey, "I am so sorry! Mr. Roke- 
smith took such an interest in Lizzie Hexam, when we were there 
before. And if we had only known of his face, we could have 
given him something that would have kept it down long enough 
for so short a purpose." 

By way of making the white one whiter, Bella hastened to stipu- 
late that he was not in pain. Mrs. Milvey was so glad of it. 

"I don't know Aoz^ it is," said Mrs. Milvey, "and I am sure 



718 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

you don't, Frank, but the clergy and their wives seem to cause 
swelled faces. Whenever I take notice of a child in the school, it 
seems to me as if its face swelled instantly. Frank never makes 
acquaintance with a new old woman, but she gets the face-ache. 
And another thing is, we do make the poor children sniff so. I 
don't know how we do it, and I should be so glad not to ; but the 
more we take notice of them, the more they sniff. Just as they 
do when the text is given out. — Frank, that's a schoolmaster. I 
have seen him somewhere." 

The reference was to a young man of reserved appearance, in a 
coat and waistcoat of black and pantaloons of pepper and salt. 
He had come into the office of the station, from its interior, in an 
unsettled way, immediately after Lightwood had gone out to the 
train; and he had been hurriedly reading the printed bills and 
notices on the wall. He had had a wandering interest in what 
was said among the people waiting there and passing to and fro. 
He had drawn nearer, at about the time when Mrs. Milvey men- 
tioned Lizzie Hexam, and had remained near since, though always 
glancing towards the door by which Lightwood had gone out. He 
stood with his back towards them, and his gloved hands clasped 
behind him. There was now so evident a faltering upon him, ex- 
pressive of indecision whether or no he should express his having 
heard himself referred to, that Mr. Milvey spoke to him. 

" I cannot recall your name," he said, " but I remember to have 
seen you in your school." 

" My name is Bradley Headstone, sir," he replied, backing into 
a more retired place. 

"I ought to have remembered it," said Mr. Milvey, giving him 
his hand. " I hope you are well ? A little overworked, I am 
afraid?" 

"Yes, I am overworked just at present, sir." 

" Had no play in your last holiday time ? " 

" No, sir." 

" All work and no play, Mr. Headstone, will not make dulness, 
in your case, I dare say ; but it will make dyspepsia, if you don't 
take care." 

" I will endeavour to take care, sir. Might I beg leave to speak 
to you, outside, a moment ? " 

" By all means." 

It was evening, and the office was well lighted. The school- 
master, who had never remitted his watch on Lightwood's door, 
now moved by another door to a corner without, where there was 
more shadow than light ; and said, plucking at his gloves : 

" One of your ladies, sir, mentioned within my hearing a name 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 719 

that I am acquainted with ; I may say, well acquainted with. 
The name of the sister of an old pupil of mine. He was my pupil 
for a long time, and has got on and gone upward rapidly. The 
name of Hexam. The name of Lizzie Hexam." He seemed to be 
a shy man, struggling against nervousness, and spoke in a very 
constrained way. The break he set between his last two sentences 
was quite embarrassing to his hearer, 

"Yes," replied Mr, Milvey. "We are going down to see her," 

" I gathered as much, sir, I hope there is nothing amiss with 
the sister of my old pupil ? I hope no bereavement has befallen 
her, I hope she is in no affliction ? Has lost no — relation 1 " 

Mr. Milvey thought this a man with a very odd manner, and a 
dark downward look ; but he answered in his usual open way, 

"I am glad to tell you, Mr. Headstone, that the sister of your 
old pupil has not sustained any such loss. You thought I might 
be going down to bury some one ? " 

" That may have been the connection of ideas, sir, with your 
clerical character, but I was not conscious of it. — Then you are 
not, sir?" 

A man with a very odd manner indeed, and with a lurking look 
that was quite oppressive. 

" No. In fact," said Mr. Milvey, " since you are so interested 
in the sister of your old pupil, I may as well tell you that I am 
going down to marry her." 

The schoolmaster started back. " Not to marry her myself," 
said Mr. Milvey, with a smile, "because I have a wife already. 
To perform the marriage service at her wedding." 

Bradley Headstone caught hold of a pillar behind him. If Mr. 
Milvey knew an ashy face when he saw it, he saw it then. 

" You are quite ill, Mr. Headstone ! " 

"It is not much, sir. It will pass over very soon. I am ac- 
customed to be seized with giddiness. Don't let me detain you, 
sir ; I stand in need of no assistance, I thank you. Much obliged 
by your sparing me these minutes of your time." 

As Mr. Milvey, who had no more minutes to spare, made a 
suitable reply and turned back into the office, he observed the 
schoolmaster to lean against the pillar with his hat in his hand, 
and to pull at his neckcloth as if he were trying to tear it off. The 
Reverend Frank accordingly directed the notice of one of the 
attendants to him, by saying : " There is a person outside who 
seems to be really ill, and to require some help, though he says he 
does not." 

Lightwood had by this time secured their places, and the de- 
parture-bell was about to be rung. They took their seats, and 



720 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

were beginning to move out of the station, when the same attend- 
ant came running along the platform looking into all the carriages. 

" Oh ! You are here, sir ! " he said, springing on the step, and 
holding the window-frame by his elbow, as the carriage moved. 
" That person you pointed out to me is in a fit." 

" I infer from what he told me that he is subject to such at- 
tacks. He will come to, in the air, in a little while." 

He was took very bad to be sure, and was biting and knocking 
about him (the man said) furiously. Would the gentleman give 
him his card, as he had seen him first ? The gentleman did so, 
with the explanation that he knew no more of the man attacked 
than that he was a man of very respectable occupation, who had 
said he was out of health, as his appearance would of itself have 
indicated. The attendant received the card, watched his oppor- 
tunity for sliding down, slid down, and so it ended. 

Then, the train rattled among the house-tops, and among the 
ragged sides of houses torn down to make way for it, and over the 
swarming streets, and under the fruitful earth, until it shot across 
the river : bursting over the quiet surface like a bomb-shell, and 
gone again as if it had exploded in the rush of smoke and steam 
and glare. A little more, and again it roared across the river, a 
great rocket : spurning the watery turnings and doublings with 
ineffable contempt, and going straight to its end, as Father Time 
goes to his. To whom it is no matter what living waters run high 
or low, reflect the heavenly lights and darknesses, produce their 
little growth of weeds and flowers, turn here, turn there, are noisy 
or still, are troubled or at rest, for their course has one sure termi- 
nation, though their sources and devices are many. 

Then, a carriage ride succeeded, near the solemn river, stealing 
away by night, as all things steal away, by night and by day, so 
quietly yielding to the attraction of the loadstone rock of Eternity; 
and the nearer they drew to the chamber where Eugene lay, the 
more they feared that they might find his wanderings done. At 
last they saw its dim light shining out, and it gave them hope : 
though Liglitwood fiiltered as he thought : " If he were gone, 
she would still be sitting by him." 

But he lay quiet, half in stupor, half in sleep. Bella, entering 
with a raised admonitory finger, kissed Lizzie softly, but said not 
a word. Neither did any of them speak, but all sat down at the foot 
of the bed, silently waiting. And now, in this night-watch, mingling 
with the flow of the river and with the rush of the train, came the 
questions into Bella's mind again : What could be in the depths 
of tliat mystery of John's ? Why was it that he had never been 
seen by Mr. Lightwood, whom he still avoided? When would 




EUGENE'S BEDSIDE. 



3a 



722 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

that trial come, through which her faith in, and her duty to, her 
dear husband, was to carry her, rendering him triumphant ? For 
that had been his term. Her passing through the trial was to 
make the man she loved with all her heart, triumphant. Term 
not to sink out of sight in Bella's breast. 

Far on in the night, Eugene opened his eyes. He was sensible, 
and said at once : " How does the time go ? Has our Mortimer 
come back 1 " 

Lightwood was there immediately, to answer for himself. " Yes, 
Eugene, and all is ready." 

" Dear boy ! " returned Eugene, with a smile, " we both thank you 
heartily. Lizzie, tell them how welcome they are, and that I 
would be eloquent if I could." 

" There is no need," said Mr. Milvey. " We know it. Are you 
better, Mr. Wrayburn ? " 

" I am much happier," said Eugene. 

" Much better too, I hope 1 " 

Eugene turned his eyes towards Lizzie, as if to spare her, and 
answered nothing. 

Then they all stood around the bed, and Mr. Milvey, opening 
his book, began the service ; so rarely associated with the shadow 
of death ; so inseparable in the mind from a flush of life and gaiety 
and hope and health and joy. Bella thought how diff'erent from 
her own sunny little wedding, and wept. Mrs. Milvey overflowed with 
pity, and wept too. The dolls' dressmaker, with her hands before 
her face, wept in her golden bower. Reading in a low clear voice, 
and bending over Eugene, who kept his eyes upon him, Mr. Milvey 
did his office with suitable simplicity. As the bridegroom could 
not move his hand, they touched his fingers with the ring, and so 
put it on the bride. When the two plighted their troth she laid 
her hand on his, and kept it there. When the ceremony was done, 
and all the rest departed from the room, she drew her arm under 
his head, and laid her own head down upon the pillow by his 
side. 

*' Undraw the curtains, my dear girl," said Eugene, after a while, 
"and let us see our wedding-day." 

The sun was rising, and his first rays struck into the room as 
she came back and put her lips to his. " I bless the day ! " said 
Eugene. " I bless the day ! " said Lizzie. 

"You have made a poor marriage of it, my sweet wife," said 
Eugene. "A shattered graceless fellow, stretched at his length 
here, and next to nothing for you when you are a young widow." 

"I have made the marriage that I would have given all the 
world to dare to hope for," she replied. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 723 

"You have thrown yourself away," said Eugene, shaking his 
head. " But you have followed the treasure of your heart. My 
justification is, that you had thrown that away first, dear 
girl!" 

"No. I had given it to you." 

" The same thing, my poor Lizzie ! " 

"Hush, hush ! A very different thing." 

There were tears in his eyes, and she besought him to close 
them. "No," said Eugene, again shaking his head ; "let me look 
at you, Lizzie, while I can. You brave devoted girl ! You heroine ! " 

Her own eyes filled under his praises. And when he mustered 
strength to move his wounded head a very little way, and lay it on 
her bosom, the tears of both fell. 

"Lizzie," said Eugene, after a silence : "when you see me wan- 
dering away from this refuge that I have so ill deserved, speak to 
me by my name, and I think I shall come back." 

"Yes, dear Eugene." 

" There ! " he exclaimed, smiling. " I should have gone then 
but for that ! " 

A little while afterwards, when he appeared to be sinking into 
insensibility, she said, in a calm loving voice : " Eugene, my dear 
husband ! " He immediately answered : " There again ! You see 
how you can recall me ! " and afterwards, when he could not speak, 
he still answered by a slight movement of his head upon her bosom. 

The sun was high in the sky whemshe gently disengaged herself 
to give him the stimulants and nourishment he required. The 
utter helplessness of the wreck of him that lay cast ashore there 
now alarmed her, but he himself appeared a little more hopeful. 

" Ah, my beloved Lizzie ! " he said, faintly. " How shall I ever 
pay all I owe you, if I recover ! " 

" Don't be ashamed of me," she replied, " and you will have 
more than paid all." 

" It would require a life, Lizzie, to pay all ; more than a life." 

" Live for that, then ; live for me, Eugene ; live to see how 
hard I will try to improve myself, and never to discredit you." 

"My darling girl," he replied, rallying more of his old manner 
than he had ever yet got together. " On the contrary, I have been 
thinking whether it is not the best thing I can do, to die." 

"The best thing you can do, to leave me with a broken heart?" 

" I don't mean that, my dear girl. I was not thinking of that. 
What I was thinking of was this. Out of your compassion for me, 
in this maimed and broken state, you make so much of me — you 
think so well of me — you love me so dearly ! " 

" Heaven knows I love you dearly ! " 



724 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"And Heaven knows I prize it ! Well. If I live, you'll find 
me out." 

" I shall find out that my husband has a mine of purpose and 
energy, and will turn it to the best account 1 " 

"I hope so, dearest Lizzie," said Eugene, wistfully, and yet some- 
what whimsically. "I hope so. But I can't summon the vanity 
to think so. How can I think so, looking back on such a trifling, 
wasted youth as mine ! I humbly hope it ; but I daren't believe 
it. There is a sharp misgiving in my conscience that if I were to 
live, I should disappoint your good opinion and my own — and 
that I ought to die, my dear ! " 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE PASSING SHADOW. 

The winds and tides rose and fell a certain number of times, 
the earth moved round the sun a certain number of times, the ship 
upon the ocean made her voyage safely, and brought a baby-Bella 
home. Then who so blest and happy as Mrs. John Rokesmith, 
saving and excepting Mr. John Rokesmith ! 

" Would you not like to be rich now, my darling 1 " 

"How can you ask me such a question, John dear? Am I not 
rich?" 

These were among the first words spoken near the baby-Bella as 
she lay asleep. She soon proved to be a baby of wonderful intelli- 
gence, evincing the strongest objection to her grandmother's society, 
and being invariably seized with a painful acidity of the stomach 
when that dignified lady honoured her with any attention. 

It was charming to see Bella contemplating this baby, and find- 
ing out her own dimples in that tiny reflection, as if she were look- 
ing in the glass without personal vanity. Her cherubic father 
justly remarked to her husband that the baby seemed to make her 
younger than before, reminding him of the days when she had a 
pet doll and used to talk to it as she carried it about. The world 
might have been challenged to produce another baby who had such 
a store of pleasant nonsense said and sung to it, as Bella said and 
sung to this baby ; or who was dressed and undressed as often in 
four-and-twenty hours as Bella dressed and undressed this baby ; 
or who was held behind doors and poked out to stop its father's 
way when he came home, as this baby was ; or, in a word, who 
did half the number of baby things, through the lively invention 
of a gay and proud young mother, that this inexhaustible baby did. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 725 

The inexhaustible baby was two or three months old, when Bella 
began to notice a cloud upon her husband's brow. Watching it, 
she saw a gathering and deepening anxiety there, which caused her 
great disquiet. More than once, she awoke him muttering in his 
sleep ; and, though he muttered nothing worse than her own name, 
it was plain to her that his restlessness originated in some load of 
care. Tlierefore, Bella at length put in her claim to divide this 
load and bear her half of it. 

"You know, John dear," she said, cheerily reverting to their 
former conversation, " that I hope I may safely be trusted in great 
things. And it surely cannot be a little thing that causes you so 
much uneasiness. It's very considerate of you to try to hide from 
me that you are uncomfortable about something, but it's quite 
impossible to be done, John love." 

" I admit that I am rather uneasy, my own." 

" Then please to tell me what about, sir." 

But no, he evaded that. "Never mind!" thought Bella, reso- 
lutely. " John requires me to put perfect faith in him, and he 
shall not be disappointed." 

She went up to London one day, to meet him, in order that they 
might make some purchases. She found him waiting for her at 
her journey's end, and they walked away together through the streets. 
He was in gay spirits, though still harping on that notion of their 
being rich ; and he said, now let them make believe that 
yonder fine carriage was theirs, and that it was waiting to take 
them home to a fine house they had ; what would Bella, in that 
case, best like to find in the house 1 Well ! Bella didn't know : 
already having everything she wanted, she couldn't say. But, by 
degrees she was led on to confess that she would like to have for 
the inexhaustible baby such a nursery as never was seen. It was 
to be "a very rainbow for colours," as she was quite sure baby 
noticed colours ; and the staircase was to be adorned with the 
most exquisite flowers, as she was absolutely certain baby noticed 
flowers ; and there was to be an aviary somewhere, of the loveliest 
little birds, as there was not the smallest doubt in the world that 
baby noticed birds. Was there nothing else? No, John dear. 
The predilections of the inexhaustible baby being provided for, Bella 
could think of nothing else. 

They were chatting on in this way, and John had suggested, 
" No jewels for your own wear, for instance ? " and Bella had re- 
plied laughing. Oh ! if he came to that, yes, there might be a 
beautiful ivory case of jewels on the dressing-table ; when these 
pictures were in a moment darkened and blotted out. 

They turned a corner and met Mr. Lightwood. 



726 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

He stopped as if he were petrified by the sight of Bella's hus- 
band, who in the same moment had changed colour. 

"Mr. Lightwood and I have met before," he said. 

"Met before, John?" Bella repeated in a tone of wonder. 
" Mr. Lightwood told me he had never seen you." 

"I did not then know that I had," said Lightwood, discomposed 

on her account. "I believed that I had only heard of Mr. 

Rokesmith." With an emphasis on the name. 

"When Mr. Lightwood saw me, my love," observed her hus- 
band, not avoiding his eye, but looking at him, "my name was 
Juli us Handford. " 

Julius Handford ! The name that Bella had so often seen in 
old newspapers, when she was an inmate of Mr. Boffin's house ! 
Julius Handford, who had been j)ublicly entreated to appear, and 
for intelligence of whom a reward had been publicly offered ! 

"I would have avoided mentioning it in your presence," said 
Lightwood to Bella, delicately ; " but since your husband mentions 
it himself, I must confirm his strange admission. I saw him as 
Mr. Julius Handford, and I afterwards (unquestionably to his 
knowledge) took great pains to trace him out." 

" Quite true. But it was not my object or my interest," said 
Rokesmith, quietly, "to be traced out." 

Bella looked from the one to the other, in amazement. 

"Mr. Lightwood," pursued her husband, " as chance has brought 
us face to face at last — which is not to be wondered at, for the 
wonder is, that, in spite of all my pains to the contrary, chance has 
not confronted us together sooner — I have only to remind you 
that you have been at my house, and to add that I have not 
changed my residence." 

" Sir," returned Lightwood, with a meaning glance towards 
Bella, "my position is a truly painful one. I- hope that no com- 
plicity in a very dark transaction may attach to you, but you can- 
not fail to know that your own extraordinary conduct has laid you 
under suspicion." 

" I know it has," was all the reply. 

" My professional duty," said Lightwood, hesitating, with another 
glance towards Bella, " is greatly at variance with my personal 
inclination : but I doubt, Mr. Handford, or Mr. Rokesmith, whether 
I am justified in taking leave of you here, with your whole course 
unexplained." 

Bella caught her husband by the hand. 

" Don't be alarmed, my darling. Mr. Lightwood will find that he 
is quite justified in taking leave of me here. At all events," added 
Rokesmith, "he will find that I mean to take leave of him here." 







LIGHTWOOD AT LAST. 



728 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"I think, sir," said Lightwood, "you can scarcely deny that 
when I came to your house on the occasion to which you have re- 
ferred, you avoided me of a set purpose." 

" Mr. Lightwood, I assure you, I have no disposition to deny it, 
or intention to deny it. I should have continued to avoid you, in 
pursuance of the same set purpose, for a short time longer, if we 
had not met now. I am going straight home, and shall remain at 
home to-morrow until noon. Hereafter, I hope we may be better 
acquainted. Good day." 

Lightwood stood irresolute, but Bella's husband passed him in 
the steadiest manner, with Bella on his arm ; and they went home 
without encountering any further remonstrance or molestation from 
any one. 

When they had dined and were alone, John Rokesmith said to 
his wife, who had preserved her cheerfulness : "And you don't ask 
me, my dear, why I bore that name ? " 

"No, John love. I should dearly like to know, of course;" 
(which her anxious face confirmed ;) " but I wait until you can tell 
me of your own free will. You asked me if I could have perfect 
faith in you, and I said yes, and I meant it." 

It did not escape Bella's notice that he began to look triumphant. 
She wanted no strengthening in her firmness ; but if she liad had 
need of any, she would have derived it from his kindling face. 

" You cannot have been prepared, my dearest, for such a discov- 
ery as that this mysterious Mr. Handford was identical with your 
husband ? " 

" No, John dear, of course not. But you told me to prepare to 
be tried, and I prepared myself" 

He drew her to nestle closer to him, and told her it would soon 
be over, and the truth would soon appear. " And now," he went 
on, " lay stress, my dear, on these words that I am going to add. 
I stand in no kind of peril, and I can by possibility be hurt at no 
one's hand." 

" You are quite, quite sure of that, John dear?" 

" Not a hair of my head ! Moreover, I have done no wrong, 
and have injured no man. Shall I swear it ? " 

" No, John ! " cried Bella, laying her hand upon his lips, with a 
proud look. " Never to me ! " 

" But circumstances," he went on — "I can, and I will, disperse 
them in a moment — have surrounded me with one of the strang- 
est suspicions ever known. You heard Mr. Lightwood speak of a 
dark transaction ? " 

"Yes, John." 

" You are prepared to hear explicitly what he meant?" 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 729 

"Yes, John." 

" My life, he ^meant the murder of John Harmon, your allotted 
husband." 

With a fast palpitating heart, Bella grasped him by the arm. 
" You cannot be suspected, John ? " 

" Dear love, I can be — for I am ! " 

There was silence between them, as she sat looking in his face, 
with the colour quite gone from her own face and lips. " How 
dare they ! " she cried at length, in a burst of generous indignation. 
" My beloved husband, how dare they ! " 

He caught her in his arms as she opened hers, and held her to 
his heart. " Even knowing this, you can trust me, Bella ? " 

" I can trust you, John dear, with all my soul. If I could not 
trust you, I should fall dead at your feet." 

The kindling triumph in his face was bright indeed, as he looked 
up and rapturously exclaimed, what had he done to deserve the 
blessing of this dear confiding creature's heart ! Again she put her 
hand upon his lips, saying, " Hush ! " and then told him, in her 
own little natural pathetic way, that if all the world were against 
him, she would be for him ; that if all the world repudiated him, 
she would believe him ; that if he were infamous in other eyes, he 
would be honoured in hers ; and that, under the worst unmerited 
suspicion, she could devote her life to consohng him, and impart- 
ing her own faith in him to their little child. 

A twilight calm of happiness then succeeding to their radiant 
noon, they remained at peace, until a strange voice in the room 
startled them both. The room being by that time dark, the voice 
said, "Don't let the lady be alarmed by my striking a light," and 
immediately a match rattled, and glimmered in a hand. The hand 
and the match and the voice were then seen by John Rokesmith to 
belong to Mr. Inspector, once meditatively active in this chronicle. 

"I take the liberty," said Mr. Inspector, in a business-like man- 
ner, " to bring myself to the recollection of Mr. Julius Handford, 
Avho gave me his name and address down at our place a consider- 
able time ago. Would the lady object to my lighting the pair of 
candles on the chimney-piece, to throw a further light upon the 
subject? No? Thank you, ma'am. Now, we look cheerful." 

Mr. Inspector, in a dark-blue buttoned-up frock coat and panta- 
loons, presented a serviceable, half-pay. Royal Arms kind of appear- 
ance, as he applied his pocket-handkerchief to his nose and bowed 
to the lady. 

"You favoured me, Mr. Handford," said Mr. Inspector, "by 
writing down your name and address, and I produce the piece of 
paper on which you wrote it. Comparing the same with the writ- 



730 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

ing on the fly-leaf of this book on the table — and a sweet pretty 
volume it is — I find the writing of the entry, ' Mrs. John Roke- 
smith. From her husband on her birthday ' — and very gratify- 
ing to the feelings such memorials are — to correspond exactly. 
Can I have a word with you ? " 

" Certainly. Here, if you please," was the reply. 

" Why," retorted Mr. Inspector, again using his pocket-handker- 
chief, " though there's nothing for the lady to be at all alarmed at, 
still, ladies are apt to take alarm at matters of business — being of 
that fragile sex that they're not accustomed to them when not of a 
strictly domestic character — and I do generally make it a rule to 
propose retirement from the presence of ladies, before entering upon 
business topics. Or, perhaps," Mr. Inspector hinted, "if the lady 
was to step up-stairs, and take a look at baby now ! " 

"Mrs. Rokesmith," — her husband was beginning; when Mr. 
Inspector, regarding the words as an introduction, said, " Happy, 
I am sure, to have the honour." And bowed, with gallantry. 

"Mrs. Rokesmith," resumed her husband, "is satisfied that she 
can have no reason for being alarmed, whatever the business is.'" 

" Really 1 Is that so ? " said Mr. Inspector. " But it's a sex to 
live and learn from, and there's nothing a lady can't accomplish 
when she once fully gives her mind to it. It's the case with my 
own wife. Well, ma'am, this good gentleman of yours has given 
rise to a rather large amount of trouble which might have been 
avoided if he had come forward and explained himself. Well, you 
see ! he didn't come forward and explain himself. Consequently, 
now that we meet, him and me, you'll say — and say right — that 
there's nothing to be alarmed at in my proposing to him to come 
forward — or, putting the same meaning in another form, to come 
along with me — and explain himself." 

When Mr. Inspector put it in that other form, " to come along 
with me," there was a relishing roll in his voice, and his eye beamed 
with an ofiicial lustre. 

" Do you propose to take me into custody ? " inquired John 
Rokesmith, very coolly. 

" Why argue 1 " returned Mr. Inspector, in a comfortable sort of 
remonstrance ; "ain't it enough that I propose that you shaU come 
along with me 1 " 

"For what reason?" 

" Lord bless my soul and body ! " returned Mr. Inspector, " I 
wonder at it in a man of your education. Why argue 1 " 

" What do you charge against me?" 

" I wonder at you before a lady," said Mr. Inspector, shaking 
his head reproachfully : "I wonder, brought up as you have been, 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 731 

you haven't a more delicate mind ! I charge you, then, with being 
some way concerned in the Harmon Murder. I don't say whether 
before, or in, or after, the fact. I don't say whether with having 
some knowledge of it that hasn't come out." 

"You don't surprise me. I foresaw your visit this afternoon." 

"Don't!" said Mr. Inspector. "Why, why argue? It's my 
duty to inform you that whatever you say, will be used against 
you." 

"Idon't think it will." 

"But I tell you it will," said Mr. Inspector. "Now, having 
received the caution, do you still say that you foresaw my visit this 
afternoon?" 

" Yes. And I will say something more if you will step with me 
into the next room." 

With a reassuring kiss on the lips of the frightened Bella, her 
husband (to whom Mr. Inspector obligingly offered his arm) took 
up a candle, and withdrew with that gentleman. They were a full 
half-hour in conference. When they returned, Mr. Inspector looked 
considerably astonished. 

"I have invited this worthy ofiBcer, my dear," said John, "to 
make a short excursion with me in which you shall be a sharer. 
He will take something to eat and drink, I dare say, on your invita- 
tion, while you are getting your bonnet on." 

Mr. Inspector declined eating, but assented to the proposal of a 
glass of brandy and water. Mixing this cold, and pensively con- 
suming it, he broke at intervals into such soliloquies as that he 
never did know such a move, that he never had been so gravelled, 
and that what a game was this to try the sort of stuff a man's 
opinion of himself was made of! Concurrently with these com- 
ments, he more than once burst out a laughing, with the half-enjoy- 
ing and half-piqued air of a man who had given up a good conundrum, 
after much guessing, and been told the answer. Bella was so timid 
of him, that she noted these things in a half-shrinking, half-percep- 
tive way, and similarly noted that there was a great change in his 
manner towards John. That coming-along-with-him deportment 
was now lost in long musing looks at John and at herself, and 
sometimes in slow heavy rubs of his hand across his forehead, as if 
he were ironing out the creases which his deep pondering made 
there. He had had some coughing and whistling satellites secretly 
gravitating towards him about the premises, but they were now 
dismissed, and he eyed John as if he had meant to do him a public 
service, but had unfortunately been anticipated. Whether Bella 
might liave noted anything more, if she had been less afraid of him, 
she could not determine; but it was all inexplicable to her, and 



732 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

not the faintest flash of the real state of the case broke in upon her 
mind. Mr. Inspector's increased notice of herself, and knowing way 
of raising his eyebrows when their eyes by any chance met, as if he 
put the question " Don't you see 1 " augmented her timidity, and, 
consequently, her perplexity. For all these reasons, when he and 
she and John, at towards nine o'clock of a winter evening, went to 
London, and began driving from London Bridge, among low-lying 
water-side wdiarves and docks and strange places, Bella was in the 
state of a dreamer ; perfectly unable to account for her being there, 
perfectly unable to forecast what would happen next, or whither 
she was going, or why ; certain of nothing in the immediate pres- 
ent, but that she confided in John, and that John seemed some- 
how to be getting more triumphant. But what a certainty was 
that! 

They alighted at last at the corner of a court, where there was 
a building with a bright lamp and a wicket gate. Its orderly 
appearance was very unlike that of the surrounding neighbourhood, 
and was explained by the inscription Police Station. 

" We are not going in here, John ? " said Bella, clinging to him. 

"Yes, my dear; but of our own accord. We shall come out 
again as easily, never fear." 

The whitewashed room was pure white as of old, the methodical 
book-keeping was in peaceful progress as of old, and some distant 
howler was banging against a cell-door as of old. The sanctuary 
was not a permanent abiding-place, but a kind of criminal Pick- 
ford's. The lower passions and vices were regularly ticked off in 
the books, warehoused in the cells, carted away as per accompany- 
ing invoice, and left little mark upon it. 

Mr. Inspector placed two chairs for his visitors, before the fire, 
and communed in a low voice with a brother of his order (also of a 
half-pay and Royal Arms aspect), who, judged only by his occupa- 
tion at the moment, might have been a writing-master, setting 
copies. Their conference done, Mr. Inspector returned to the fire- 
place, and, having observed that he would step round to the Fellow- 
ships and see how matters stood, went out. He soon came back 
again, saying, "Nothing could be better, for they're at supper 
with Miss Abbey in the bar ; " and then they all three went out 
together. 

Still, as in a dream, Bella found herself entering a snug, old- 
fashioned public-house, and found herself smuggled into a little 
three-cornered room nearly opposite the bar of that establishment. 
Mr. Inspector achieved the smuggling of herself and John into this 
queer room, called Cosy in an inscription on the door, by entering 
in the narrow passage first in order, and suddenly turning round 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 733 

upon them with extended arms, as if they had been two sheep. 
The room was Ughted for their reception. 

"Now," said Mr. Inspector to John, turning the gas lower; 
"I'll mix with 'em in a casual way, and when I say Identification, 
perhaps you'll show yourself" 

John nodded, and Mr. Inspector went alone to the half-door of 
the bar. From the dim doorway of Cosy, within which Bella 
and her husband stood, they could see a comfortable little party 
of three persons sitting at supper in the bar, and could heai" every- 
thing that was said. 

The three persons were Miss Abbey and two male guests. To 
whom collectively, Mr. Inspector remarked that the weather was 
getting sharp for the time of year. 

"It need be sharp to suit your wits, sir," said Miss Abbey. 
"What have you got in hand now?" 

"Thanking you for your compliment: not much. Miss Abbey," 
was Mr. Inspector's rejoinder. 

" Who have you got in Cosy ? " asked Miss Abbey. 

" Only a gentleman and his wife. Miss." 

" And who are they ? If one may ask it without detriment to 
your deep plans in the interests of the honest public ? " said Miss 
Abbey, proud of Mr. Inspector as an administrative genius. 

"They are strangers in this part of the town. Miss Abbey. 
They are waiting till I shall want the gentleman to show himself 
somewhere, for half a moment." 

"While they're waiting," said Miss Abbey, "couldn't you join 
us?" 

Mr. Inspector immediately slipped into the bar, and sat do-«m 
at the side of the half-door, Avith his back towards the passage, 
and directly facing the two guests. " I don't take my supper till 
later in the night," said he, "and therefore I won't disturb the 
compactness of the table. But I'll take a glass of flip, if that's 
flip in the jug in the fender." 

" That's flip," replied Miss Abbey, " and it's my making, and if 
even you can find out better, I shall be glad to know where." Fill- 
ing him, with hospitable hands, a steaming tumbler. Miss Abbey 
replaced the jug by the fire ; the company not having yet arrived 
at the flip-stage of their supper, but being as yet skirmishing with 
strong ale. 

" Ah — h ! " cried Mr. Inspector. " That's the smack ! There's 
not a Detective in the Force, Miss Abbey, that could find out 
better stuff than that." 

"G-lad to hear you say so," rejoined Miss Abbey. "You ought 
to know, if anybody does." 



734 OUR MUTUAL ERIEND. 

"Mr. Job Potterson," Mr. Inspector continued, "I drink your 
health. Mr. Jacob Kibble, I drink yours. Hope you have made 
a prosperous voyage home, gentlemen both." 

Mr. Kibble, an unctuous broad man of few words and many 
mouthfuls, said, more briefly than pointedly, raising his ale to his 
lips : " Same to you." Mr. Job Potterson, a semi-seafaring man 
of obliging demeanour, said, " Thank you, sir." 

"Lord bless my soul and body!" cried Mr. Inspector. "Talk 
of trades, Miss Abbey, and the way they set their marks on men " 
(a subject which nobody had approached); "who wouldn't know 
your brother to be a Steward ! There's a bright and ready twinkle 
in his eye, there's a neatness in his action, there's a smartness in 
his figure, there's an air of reliability about him in case you wanted 
a basin, which points out the steward ! And Mr. Kibble ; ain't 
he Passenger, all over? While there's that mercantile cut upon 
him which would make you happy to give him credit for five hun- 
dred pound, don't you see the salt sea shining on him too ? " 

^'You do, I dare say," returned Miss Abbey, "but / don't. 
And as for stewarding, I think it's time my brother gave that up, 
and took this House in hand on his sister's retiring. The House 
will go to pieces if he don't. I wouldn't sell it for any money that 
could be told out, to a person that I couldn't depend upon to be a 
Law to the porters, as I have been." 

" There you're right. Miss," said Mr. Inspector. " A better kept 
house is not known to our men. What do I say ? Half so well 
a kept house is not known to our men. Show the Force the Six 
Jolly Fellowship Porters, and the Force — to a constable — will 
show you a piece of perfection, Mr. Kibble." 

That gentleman, with a very serious shake of his head, sub- 
scribed the article. 

"And talk of Time slipping by you, as if it was an animal at 
rustic sports with his tail soaped," said Mr. Inspector (again, a 
subject which nobody had approached) ; "why, well you may. Well 
you may. How has it slipped by us, since the time when Mr. Job 
Potterson here present, Mr. Jacob Kibble here present, and an Ofii- 
cer of the Force here present, first came together on a matter of 
Identification ! " 

Bella's husband stepped softly to the half-door of the bar, and 
stood there. 

" How has Time slipped by us," Mr. Inspector went on slowly, 
with his eyes narrowly observant of the two guests, "since we 
three very men, at an Inquest in this very house — Mr. Kibble ? 
Taken ill, sir?" 

Mr. Kibble had staggered up, with his lower jaw dropped, catch- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 735 

ing Potterson by the shoulder, and pointing to the half-door. He 
now cried out: "Potterson! Look! Look there ! " Potterson 
started up, started back, and exclaimed : " Heaven defend us, 
what's that ? " Bella's husband stepped back to Bella, took her in 
his arms (for she was terrified by the unintelligible terror of the 
two men), and shut the door of the little room. A hurry of 
voices succeeded, in which Mr. Inspector's voice was busiest ; it 
gradually slackened and sank ; and Mr. Inspector reappeared. 
" Sharp's the word, sir ! " he said, looking in with a knowing 
wink. "We'll get your lady out at once." Immediately, Bella 
and her husband were under the stars, making their way back, 
alone, to the vehicle they had kept in waiting. 

All this was most extraordinary, and Bella could make nothing 
of it but that John was in the right. How in the right, and how 
suspected of being in the wrong, she could not divine. Some 
vague idea that he had never really assumed the name of Hand- 
ford, and that there was a remarkable likeness between him and 
that mysterious person, was her nearest approach to any definite 
explanation. But John was triumphant; that much was rnade 
apparent ; and she could wait for the rest. 

When John came home to dinner next day, he said, sitting 
down on the sofa by Bella and baby-Bella : " My dear, I have a 
piece of news to tell you. I have left the China House." 

As he seemed to like having left it, Bella took it for granted 
that there was no misfortune in the case. 

" In a word, my love," said John, " the China House is broken 
up and abolished. There is no such thing any more." 

"Then, are you already in another House, John?" 

" Yes, my darling. I am in another way of business. And I 
am rather better off"." 

The inexhaustible baby was instantly made to congratulate him, 
and to say, with appropriate action on the part of a very limp arm 
and a speckled fist : " Three cheers, ladies and gemplemorums. 
Hoo — ray ! " 

"I am afraid, my life," said John, "that you have become very 
much attached to this cottage." 

"Afraid I have, John? Of course I have." 

"The reason why I said afraid," returned John, "is, because we 
must move." 

" Oh, John ! " 

" Yes, my dear, we must move. We must have our head-quar- 
ters in London now. In short, there's a dwelling-house, rent-free, 
attached to my new position, and we must occupy it." 

" That's a gain, John." 



736 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Yes, my dear, it is undoubtedly a gain." 

He gave her a very blithe look, and a very sly look. Which oc- 
casioned the inexhaustible baby to square at him with the speckled 
fists, and demand in a threatening manner what he meant ? 

" My love, you said it was a gain, and / said it was a gain. A 
very innocent remark, surely." 

"I won't," said the inexhaustible baby, " — allow — you — to 
make — -game — of — my — venerable — Ma." At each division 
administering a soft facer with one of the speckled fists. 

John having stooped down to receive these punishing visitations, 
Bella asked him, would it be necessary to move soon ? Why, yes, 
indeed (said Jolm) he did propose that they should move very soon. 
Taking the furniture with them, of course? (said Bella). Why, 
no (said John), the fact was, that the house was — in a sort of a 
kind of a way — furnished already. 

The inexhaustible baby, hearing this, resumed the offensive : and 
said, "But there's no nursery for me, sir. What do you mean, 
marble-hearted parent ? " To which the marble-hearted parent re- 
joined that there was a — sort of a kind of a nursery — and it 
might be "made to do." "Made to do?" returned the Inex- 
haustible, administering more punishment, " what do you take me 
for 1 " And was then turned over on its back in Bella's lap, and 
smothered with kisses. 

"But really, John dear," said Bella, flushed in quite a lovely 
manner by these exercises, " will the new house, just as it stands, 
do for baby ? That's the question 1 " 

"I felt that to be the question," he returned, "and therefore I 
arranged that you should come with me and look at it, to-morrow 
morning." Appointment made, accordingly, for Bella to go up 
with him to-morrow morning ; John kissed ; and Bella delighted. 

When they reached London in pursuance of their little plan, 
they took coach and drove westward. Not only drove westward, 
but drove into that particular westward division which Bella had 
seen last when she turned her face from Mr. Boffin's door. Not 
only drove into that particular division, but drove at last into that 
very street. Not only drove into that very street, but stopped at 
last at that very house. 

"John dear !" cried Bella, looking out of the window in a flut- 
ter. " Do you see where we are ? " 

"Yes, my love. The coachman's quite right." 

The house door was opened without any knocking or ringing, 
and John promptly helped her out. The servant who stood hold- 
ing the door asked no question of John, neither did he go before 
them or follow them as they went straight up-stairs. It was only 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 737 

her husband's encircling arm, urging her on, that prevented Bella 
from stopping at the foot of the staircase. As they ascended, it 
was seen to be tastefully ornamented with most beautiful flowers. 
" Oh, John ! " said Bella, faintly. " What does this mean ? " 
" Nothing, my darling, nothing. Let us go on." 
Going on a little higher, they came to a charming aviary, in 
which a number of tropical birds, more gorgeous in colour than the 
flowers, were flying about ; and among those birds were gold and 
silver fish, and mosses, and water-lilies, and a fountain, and all 
manner of wonders. 

" Oh, my dear John ! " said Bella. " What does this mean ? " 
" Nothing, my darling, nothing. Let us go on." 
They went on, until they came to a door. As John put out his 
hand to open it, Bella caught his hand. 

" I don't know what it means, but it's too much for me. Hold 
me, John love." 

John caught her up in his arm, and lightly dashed into the 
room with her. 

Behold Mr. and Mrs. Boffin beaming ! Behold Mrs. Boffin clap- 
ping her hands in an ecstasy, running to Bella, with tears of joy 
pouring down her comely face, and folding her to her breast, with 
the words : " My deary, deaiy, deary girl, that Noddy and me saw 
married and couldn't wish joy to, or so much as speak to ! My 
deary, deary, deaiy, wife of John, and mother of his little child ! 
My loving, loving, bright bright. Pretty Pretty. Welcome to your 
house and home, my deary ! " 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SHOWING HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN HELPED TO SCATTER DUST. 

In all the first bewilderment of her wonder, the most bewilder- 
ingly wonderful thing to Bella was the shining countenance of Mr. 
Boffin. That his wife should be joyous, open-hearted, and genial, 
or that her face should express every quality that was large and 
trusting, and no quality that was little or mean, was accordant 
with Bella's experience. But, that he, with a perfectly beneficent 
air and a plump rosy face, should be standing there, looking at her 
and John, like some jovial good spirit, was marvellous. For, how 
had he looked when she last saw him in that very room (it was 
the room in which she had given him that piece of her mind at 
parting), and what had become of all those crooked lines of suspi- 
cion, avarice, and distrust, that twisted his visage then ? 

Mrs. Boffin seated Bella on the large ottoman, and seated herself 

3b 



738 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

beside her, and John, her husband, seated himself on the other side 
of her, and Mr. Boffin stood beaming at every one and eveiything 
he could see, with surpassing jollity and enjoyment. Mrs. Boffin 
was then taken with a laughing fit of clapping her hands and clap- 
ping her knees, and rocking herself to and fro, and then with another 
laughing fit of embracing Bella, and rocking her to and fro — both 
fits of considerable duration. 

"Old lady, old lady," said Mr. Boffin, at length; "if you don't 
begin somebody else must." 

"I'm a going to begin, Noddy, my dear," returned Mrs. Boffin. 
" Only it isn't easy for a person to know where to begin, when a 
person is in this state of delight and happiness. Bella, my dear. 
Tell me, who's this ? " 

" Who is this ? " repeated Bella. " My husband." 

"Ah ! But tell me his name, deary ! " cried Mrs. Boffin. 

" Rokesmith." 

" No, it ain't ! " cried Mrs. Boffin, clapping her hands and shak- 
ing her head. " Not a bit of it." 

" Handford then," suggested Bella. 

" No, it ain't ! " cried Mrs. Boffin, again clapping her hands and 
shaking her head. " Not a bit of it." 

"At least, his name is John, I suppose?" said Bella. 

" Ah ! I should think so, deary ! " cried Mrs. Boffin. " I 
should hope so ! Many and many is the time I have called him 
by his name of John. But what's his other name, his true other 
name ? Give a guess, my pretty." 

" I can't guess," said Bella, turning her pale face from one to 
another. 

"/ could," cried Mrs. Boffin, "and what's more, I did ! I found 
him out all in a flash, as I may say, one night. Didn't I, Noddy 1 " 

"Ay! That the old lady did!" said Mr. Boffin, with stout 
pride in the circumstance. 

"Harkee to me, deary," pursued Mrs. Boffin, taking Bella's 
hands between her own, and gently beating on them from time to 
time. " It was after a particular night when John had been dis- 
appointed — as he thought — in his aff'ections. It was after a 
night when John had made an off'er to a certain young lady, and 
the certain young lady had refused it. It was after a particular 
night, when he felt himself cast-away-like, and had made up his 
mind to go seek his fortune. It was the very next night. My 
Noddy wanted a paper out of his Secretary's room, and I says to 
Noddy, ' I am going by the door, and I'll ask him for it.' I tapped 
at his door, and he didn't hear me. I looked in, and saw him a 
sitting lonely by his fire, brooding over it. He chanced to look up 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 739 

with a pleased kind of smile in my company when he saw me, and 
then in a single moment every grain of the gunpowder that had 
been lying sprinkled thick about him ever since I first set eyes upon 
him as a man at the Bower, took fire ! Too many a time had I 
seen him sitting lonely, when he was a poor child, to be pitied, 
heart and hand ! Too many a time had I seen him in need of be- 
ing brightened up with a comforting word ! Too many and too 
many a time to be mistaken, when that glimpse of him come at last ! 
No ! no ! I just makes out to cry, ' I know you now ! You're 
John ! ' And he catches me as I drops. — So what," said Mrs. 
Boflfin, breaking off in the rush of her speech to smile most radi- 
antly, " might you think by this time that your husband's name 
was, dear?" 

"Not," returned Bella, with quivering lips; "not Harmon? 
That's not possible ? " 

" Don't tremble. Why not possible, deary, when so many things 
are possible ? " demanded Mrs. Boffin, in a soothing tone. 

"He was killed," gasped Bella. 

"Thought to be," said Mrs. Boffin. " But if ever John Harmon 
drew the breath of life on earth, that is certainly John Harmon's 
arm round your waist now, my pretty. If ever John Harmon had 
a wife on earth, that wife is certainly you. If ever John Harmon 
and his wife had a child on earth, that child is certainly this." 

By a master-stroke of secret arrangement, the inexhaustible baby 
here appeared at the door, suspended in mid-air by invisible agency. 
Mrs. Boffin plunging at it, brought it to Bella's lap, where both 
Mrs. and Mr. Boffin (as the saying is) " took it out of" the Inexhaus- 
tible in a shower of caresses. It was only this timely appearance 
that kept Bella from swooning. This, and her husband's earnest- 
ness in explaining further to her how it had come to pass that he 
had been supposed to be slain, and had even been suspected of his 
own murder; also, how he had put a pious fraud upon her which 
had preyed upon his mind, as the time for its disclosure approached, 
lest she might not make full allowance for the object with which it 
had originated, and in which it had fully developed. 

" But bless ye, my beauty ! " cried Mrs. Boffin, taking him up 
short at this point, with another hearty clap of her hands. " It 
wasn't John only that was in it. We was all of us in it." 

" I don't," said Bella, looking vacantly from one to another, "yet 
understand " 

" Of course you don't, my deary," exclaimed Mrs. Boffin. " How 
can you till you're told ? So now I am a going to tell you. So 
you put your two hands between my two hands again," cried the 
comfortable creature, embracing her, " with that blessed little 



740 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

picter lying on your lap, and you shall be told all the story. Now, 
I'm a going to tell the story. Once, twice, three times, and the 
horses is oflF. Here they go ! When I cries out that night, ' I know 
you now, you're John ! ' — which was my exact words ; wasn't they 
John?" 

"Your exact words," said John, laying his hand on hers. 

"That's a very good arrangement," cried Mrs. Boffin. "Keep 
it there, John. And as we was all of us in it. Noddy, you come 
and lay yours a-top of his, and we won't break the pile till the 
sk)ry's done." 

Mr. Boffin hitched up a chair, and added his broad brown right 
hand to the heap. 

" That's capital ! " said Mrs. Boffin, giving it a kiss. " Seems 
quite a family building ; don't it 1 But the horses is off. Well ! 
When I cries out that night, ' I know you now ! you're John ! ' 
John catches of me, it is true ; but I ain't a light weight, bless ye, 
and he's forced to let me down. Noddy, he hears a noise, and in 
he trots, and as soon as I anyways comes to myself I calls to him, 
' Noddy, well I might say as I did say, that night at the Bower, 
for the Lord be thankful this is John ! ' On which he gives a 
heave, and down he goes likewise, with his head under the writing- 
table. This brings me round comfortable, and that brings him 
round comfortable, and then John and him and me we all fall a 
crying for joy." 

" Yes ! They cry for joy, my darling," her husband struck in. 
" You understand ? These two, whom I come to life to disap- 
point and dispossess, cry for joy ! " 

Bella looked at him confusedly, and looked again at Mrs. Boffin's 
radiant face. 

" That's right, my dear, don't you mind him," said Mrs. Boffin, 
" stick to me. Well ! Then we sits down, gradually gets cool, 
and holds a confabulation. John he tells us how he is despairing 
in his mind on accounts of a certain fair young person, and how, 
if I hadn't found him out, he was going away to seek his fortune 
far and wide, and had fully meant never to come to life, but to 
leave the property as our wrongful inheritance for ever and a day. 
At which you never see a man so frightened as my Noddy was. 
For to think that he should have come in to the property wrongful, 
however innocent, and — more than that — might have gone on 
keeping it to his dying day, turned him whiter than chalk." 

"And you too," said Mr. Boffin. 

"Don't you mind him, neither, my deary," resumed Mrs. Boffin; 
" stick to me. This brings up a certain confabulation regarding a 
certain fair young person ; wlien Noddy he gives it as his opinion that 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 741 

she is a deary creetur. ' She may be a leetle spoilt, and nat'rally 
spoilt,' he says, 'by circumstances, but that's only on the surface, 
and I lay my life,' he says, 'that she's the true golden gold at 
heart.' " 

"So did you," said Mr. Boffin. 

"Don't you mind him a single morsel, my dear," proceeded Mrs. 
Boffin, "but stick to me. Then says John, Oh, if he could but 
prove so ! Then we both of us ups and says, that minute, ' Prove 
so ! '" 

With a start Bella directed a hurried glance towards Mr. Boffin. 
But, he was sitting thoughtfully smiling at that broad brown hand 
of his, and either didn't see it or would take no notice of it. 

" ' Prove it, John ! ' we says," repeated Mrs. Boffin. " ' Prove 
it and overcome your doubts with triumph, and be happy for the 
first time in your life, and for the rest of your life.' This puts 
John in a state, to be sure. Then we says, ' What will content 
you ? If she was to stand up for you when you was slighted, if she 
was to show herself of a generous mind when you was oppressed, 
if she was to be truest to you when you was poorest and friendli- 
est, and all this against her own seeming interest, how would that 
do?' 'Do?' says John, 'it would raise me to the skies.' 'Then,' 
says my Noddy, 'make your preparations for the ascent, John, it 
being my firm belief that up you go ! ' " 

Bella caught Mr. Boffin's twinkling eye for half an instant ; but 
he got it away from her, and restored it to his broad brown hand. 

" From the first, you was always a special favourite of Noddy's," 
said Mrs. Boffin, shaking her head. " you were ! And if I 
had been inclined to be jealous, I don't know what I mightn't have 
done to you. But as I wasn't — why, my beauty," with a hearty 
laugh and an embrace, " I made you a special favourite of my own 
too. But the horses is coming round the comer. Well ! Then 
says my Noddy, shaking his sides till he was fit to make 'em ache 
again : ' Look out for being slighted and oppressed, John, for 
if ever a man had a hard master, you shall find me from this 
present time to be such to you.' And then he began ! ' " cried Mrs. 
Boffin, in an ecstasy of admiration. " Lord bless you, then he 
began ! And how he did begin ; didn't he ! " 

Bella looked half frightened, and yet half laughed. 

" But, bless you," pursued Mrs. Boffin, " if you could have seen 
him of a night, at that time of it ! The way he'd sit and chuckle 
over himself ! The way he'd say, ' I've been a regular brown bear 
to-day,' and take himself in his arms and hug himself at the thoughts 
of the brute he had pretended. But every night he says to me : 
' Better and better, old lady. What did we say of her ? She'll come 



742 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

through it, the true golden gold. This'll be the happiest piece of 
work we ever done.' And then he'd say, ' I'll be a grislier old 
growler to-morrow ! ' and laugh, he would, till John and me was 
often forced to slap his back, and bring it out of his windpipes 
with a httle water." 

Mr. Boffin, with his face bent over his heavy hand, made no 
sound, but rolled his shoulders when thus referred to, as if he were 
vastly enjoying himself 

"And so, my good and pretty," pursued Mrs. Boffin, "you was 
married, and there was we hid up in the church-organ by this 
husband of yours ; for he wouldn't let us out with it then, as was 
first meant. ' No,' he says, ' she's so unselfish and contented, that 
I can't aff'ord to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer.' Then, 
when baby was expected, he says, ' She is such a cheerful, glorious 
housewife, that I can't aff'ord to be rich yet. I must wait a little 
longer.' Then, when baby was born, he says, ' She is so much 
better than she ever was, that I can't afford to be rich yet. I 
must wait a little longer.' And so he goes on and on, till I says 
outright, ' Now, John, if you don't fix a time for setting her up 
in her own house and home, and letting us walk out of it, I'll turn 
Informer.' Then he says, he'll only wait to triumph beyond what 
we ever thought possible, and to show her to us better than even 
we ever supposed ; and he says, ' She shall see me under suspicion 
of having murdered myself, and you shall see how trusting and how 
true she'll be.' Well ! Noddy and me agreed to that, and he was 
right, and here you are, and the horses is in, and the story is done, 
and God bless you, my Beauty, and God bless us all ! " 

The pile of hands dispersed, and Bella and Mrs. Boffin took a 
good long hug of one another : to the apparent peril of the inexhaus- 
tible baby, lying staring in Bella's lap. 

" But is, the story done ? " said Bella, pondering. " Is there no 
more of it % " 

" What more of it should there be, deary ? " returned Mrs. 
Boffin, full of glee. 

" Are you sure you have left nothing out of it 1 " asked Bella. 

" I don't think I have," said Mrs. Boffin, archly. 

"John dear," said Bella, "you're a good nurse; will you please 
hold baby ? " Having deposited the Inexhaustible in his arms 
with those words, Bella looked hard at Mr. Boffin, who had 
moved to a table where he was leaning his head upon his hand, 
with his face turned away, and, quietly settling herself on her 
knees at his side, and drawing one arm over his shoulder, said : 
" Please I beg your pardon, and I made a small mistake of a word 
when I took leave of you last. Please I think you are better (not 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 743 

worse) than Hopkins, better (not worse) than Dancer, better (not 
worse) than Blackberry Jones, better (not worse) than any of 
them ! Please something more ! " cried Bella, with an exultant 
ringing laugh as she struggled with him and forced him to 
turn his delighted face to hers. " Please I have found out some- 
thing not yet mentioned. Please I don't believe you are a hard- 
hearted miser at all, and please I don't believe you ever for one 
single minute were ! " 

At this, Mrs. Boffin fairly screamed with rapture, and sat beating 
her feet upon the floor, clapping her hands, and bobbing herself 
backwards and forwards, like a demented member of some Man- 
darin's family. 

"0, I understand you now, sir ! " cried Bella. " I want 
neither you nor any one else to tell me the rest of the story. I 
can tell it to you, now, if you would like to hear it." 

" Can you, my dear % " said Mr. Boffin. " Tell it then." 

" What % " cried Bella, holding him prisoner by the coat with 
both hands. "When you saw what a greedy little wretch you 
were the patron of, you determined to show her how much misused 
and misprized riches could do, and often had done, to spoil people ; 
did you? Not caring what she thought of you (and Goodness 
knows that Avas of no consequence !) you showed her, in yourself, 
the most detestable sides of wealth, saying in your own mind, 
' This shallow creature would never work the truth out of her own 
weak soul, if she had a hundred years to do it in ; but a glaring 
instance kept before her may open even her eyes and set her think- 
ing.' That was what you said to yourself; was it, sir?" 

"I never said anything of the sort," Mr. Boffin declared in a 
state of the highest enjoyment. 

" Then you ought to have said it, sir," returned Bella, giving 
him two pulls and one kiss, "for you must have thought and 
meant it. You saw that good fortune was turning my stupid 
head and hardening my silly heart — was making me grasping, 
calculating, insolent, insufferable — and you took the pains to be 
the dearest and kindest finger-post that ever was set up anywhere, 
pointing out the road that I was taking and the end it led to. 
Confess instantly ! " 

"John," said Mr. Boffin, one broad piece of sunshine from head 
to foot, " I wish you'd help me out of this." 

"You can't be heard by counsel, sir," returned Bella. "You 
must speak for yourself. Confess instantly ! " 

"Well, my dear," said Mr. Boffin, "the truth is, that when we 
did go in for the little scheme that my old lady has pinted out, I 
did put it to John, what did he think of going in for some such 



744 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

general scheme as you have pinted out ? But I didn't in any way 
so word it, because I didn't in any way so mean it. I only said to 
John, wouldn't it be more consistent, me going in for being a reg'lar 
brown bear respecting him, to go in as a reg'lar brown bear all 
round % " 

" Confess this minute, sir," said Bella, " that you did it to correct 
and amend me ! " 

"Certainly, my dear child," said Mr. Boffin, "I didn't do it to 
harm you ; you may be sure of that. And I did hope it might 
just hint a caution. Still, it ought to be mentioned that no sooner 
had my old lady found out John, than John made known to her 
and me that he had had his eye upon a thankless person by the. 
name of Silas Wegg. Partly for the punishment of which Wegg, 
by leading him on in a very unhandsome and underhanded game 
that he was playing, them books that you and me bought so many 
of together (and, by-the-bye, my dear, he wasn't Blackberry Jones, 
but Blewberry) was read aloud to me by that person of the name 
of Silas Wegg aforesaid." 

Bella, who was still on her knees at Mr. Boffin's feet, gradually 
sank down in a sitting posture on the ground, as she meditated 
more and more thoughtfully, with her eyes upon his beaming face. 

" Still," said Bella, after this meditative pause, " there remain 
two things that I cannot understand. Mrs. Boffin never supposed 
any part of the change in Mr. Boffin to be real ; did she ? You 
never did ; did you ? " asked Bella, turning to her. 

" No ! " returned Mrs. Boffin with a most rotund and glowing 
negative. 

"And yet you took it very much to heart," said Bella. "I 
remember its making you very uneasy, indeed." 

" Ecod, you see Mrs. John has a sharp eye, John ? " cried Mr. 
Boffin, shaking his head with an admiring air. "You're right, my 
dear. The old lady nearly blowed us into shivers and smithers, 
many times." 

" Why ? " asked Bella. " How did that happen when she was 
in your secret ? " 

" Why, it was a weakness in the old lady," said Mr. Boffin : " and 
yet, to tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I'm 
rather proud of it. My dear, the old lady thinks so high of me 
that she couldn't abear to see and hear me coming out as a regular 
brown one. Couldn't abear to make-believe as I meant it ! In 
consequence of which, we was everlastingly in danger with her." 

Mrs. Boffin laughed heartily at herself; but a certain glistening 
in her honest eyes revealed that she was by no means cured of that 
dangerous propensity. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 745 

" I assure you, my dear," said Mr. Boffin, " that on the celebrated 
day when I made what has since been agreed upon to be my grand- 
est demonstration — I allude to Mew says the cat, Quack quack 
says the duck, and Bow-wow- wow says the dog — I assure you, 
my dear, that on that celebrated day, them flinty and unbelieving 
words hit my old lady so hard on my account, that I had to hold 
her, to prevent her running out after you, and defending me by 
saying I was playing a part.'' 

Mrs. Boffin laughed heartily again, and her eyes glistened again, 
and it then appeared, not only that in that burst of sarcastic elo- 
quence Mr. Boffin was considered by his two fellow-conspirators to 
have outdone himself, but that in his own opinion it was a remark- 
able achievement. "Never thought of it afore the moment, my 
dear ! " he observed to Bella. " When John said, if he had been 
so happy as to win your affections and possess your heart, it come 
into my head to turn round upon him with ' Win her affections and 
possess her heart ! Mew says the cat, Quack quack says the duck, 
and Bow-wow-wow says the dog.' I couldn't tell you how it come 
into my head or where from, but it had so much the sound of a 
rasper that I own to you it astonished myself. I was awful nigh 
bursting out a laughing though, when it made John stare ! " 

"You said, my pretty," Mrs. Boffin reminded Bella, "that there 
was one other thing you couldn't understand." 

" yes ! " cried Bella, covering her face with her hands ; " but 
that I never shall be able to understand as long as I live. It is, 
how John could love me so when I so little deserved it, and how 
you, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, could be so forgetful of yourselves, and 
take such pains and trouble, to make me a little better, and after 
all to help him to so unworthy a wife. But I am very, very 
grateful." 

It was John Harmon's turn then — John Harmon now for good, 
and John Rokesmith for nevermore — to plead with her (quite 
unnecessarily) in behalf of his deception, and to tell her, over and 
over again, that it had been prolonged by her own winning graces 
in her supposed station of life. This led on to many interchanges 
of endearment and enjoyment on all sides, in the midst of which 
the Inexhaustible being observed staring in a most imbecile manner, 
on Mrs. Boffin's breast, was pronounced to be supernaturally intel- 
ligent as to the whole transaction, and was made to declare to the 
ladies and gemplemorums, with a wave of the speckled fist (with 
difficulty detached from an exceedingly short waist), " I have already 
informed my venerable Ma that I know all about it." 

Then, said John Harmon, would Mrs. John Harmon come and 
see her house 1 And a dainty house it was, and a tastefully beauti- 



746 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

ful ; and they went through it in j^rocession ; the Inexhaustible on 
Mrs. Boffin's bosom (still staring) occupying the middle station, and 
Mr. Boffin bringing up the rear. And on Bella's exquisite toilette 
table was an ivory casket, and in the casket were jewels the like of 
which she had never dreamed of, and aloft on an upper floor was 
a nursery garnished as with rainbows ; " though we were hard put 
to it," said John Harmon, " to get it done in so short a time." 

The house inspected, emissaries removed the Inexhaustible, who 
was shortly afterwards heard screaming among the rainbows ; where- 
upon Bella withdrew herself from the presence and knowledge of 
gemplemorums, and the screaming ceased, and smiling Peace associ- 
ated herself with that young olive branch. 

" Come and look in, Noddy ! " said Mrs. Boffin to Mr. Boffin. 

Mr. Boffin, submitting to be led on tiptoe to the nursery door, 
looked in with immense satisfaction, although there was nothing to 
see but Bella in a musing state of happiness, seated in a little low 
chair upon the hearth, with her child in her fair young arms, and 
her soft eyelashes shading her eyes from the fire. 

" It looks as if the old man's spirit had found rest at last ; don't 
it ? " said Mrs. Boffin. 

"Yes, old lady." 

" And as if his money had turned bright again, after a long, long 
rust in the dark, and was at last beginning to sparkle in the sun- 
light?" 

"Yes, old lady." 

" And it makes a pretty and a promising picter ; don't it ? " 

"Yes, old lady." 

But, aware at the instant of a fine opening for a point, Mr. 
Boffin quenched that observation in this — delivered in the grisliest 
growling of the regular brown bear. "A pretty and a hopeful 
picter ? Mew, Quack quack. Bow-wow ! " And then trotted 
silently down-stairs, with his shoulders in a state of the liveliest 
commotion. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE, 

Mr. and Mrs. John Harmon had so timed their taking pos- 
session of their rightful name and their London house, that the 
event befell on the very day when the last waggon-load of the last 
Mound was driven out at the gates of Boffin's Bower. As it jolted 
away, Mr. Wcgg felt that the last load was correspondingly removed 




MK. BOFFIN DOES THE HONOURS OF THE NURSERY DOOR. 



748 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

from his mind, and hailed the auspicious season when that black 
sheep, Boffin, was to be closely sheared. 

Over the whole slow process of levelling the Mounds, Silas had 
kept watch with rapacious eyes. But, eyes no less rapacious had 
watched the growth of the Mounds in years bygone, and had vigi- 
lantly sifted the dust of which they were composed. No valuables 
turned up. How should there be any, seeing that the old hard 
jailer of Harmony Jail had coined every waif and stray into money, 
long before ? 

Though disappointed by this bare result, Mr. Wegg felt too 
sensibly relieved by the close of the labour, to grumble to any 
great extent. A foreman-representative of the dust contractors, 
purchasers of the Mounds, had worn Mr. Wegg down to skin and 
bone. This supervisor of the proceedings asserting his employers' 
rights to cart off by daylight, nightlight, torchlight, when they 
would, must have been the death of Silas if the work had lasted 
much longer. Seeming never to need sleep himself, he would re- 
appear, with a tied-up broken head, in fantail hat and velveteen 
smalls, like an accursed goblin, at the most unholy and untimely 
hours. Tired out by keeping close ward over a long day's work in 
fog and rain, Silas would have just crawled to bed and be dozing, 
when a horrid shake and rumble under his pillow would announce 
an approaching train of carts, escorted by this Demon of Unrest, 
to fall to work again. At another time, he would be rumbled up 
out of his soundest sleep, in the dead of the night ; at another, would 
be kept at his post eight-and-forty hours on end. The more his 
persecutor besought him not to trouble himself to turn out, the 
more suspicious was the crafty Wegg that indications had been 
observed of something hidden somewhere, and that attempts were 
on foot to circumvent him. So continually broken was his rest 
through these means, that he led the life of having wagered to 
keep ten thousand dog-watches in ten thousand hours, and looked 
piteously upon himself as always getting up and yet never going to 
bed. So gaunt and haggard had he grown at last, that his wooden 
leg showed disproportionate, and presented a thriving appearance 
in contrast with the rest of his plagued body, which might almost 
have been termed chubby. 

However, Wegg's comfort was, that all his disagreeables were 
now over, and that he was immediately coming into his property. Of 
late the Grindstone did undoubtedly appear to have been whirling 
at his own nose rather than Boffin's, but Boffin's nose was now to be 
sharpened fine. Thus far, Mr. Wegg had let his dusty friend off 
lightly, having been baulked in that amiable design of frequently 
dining with him, by the machinations of the sleepless dustman. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 749 

He had been constrained to depute Mr. Venus to keep their dusty 
friend, Boffin, under inspection, while he himself turned lank and 
lean at the Bower. 

To Mr. Venus's museum Mr. Wegg repaired when at length the 
Mounds were down and gone. It being evening, he found that 
gentleman, as he expected, seated over his fire; but did not find 
him, as he expected, floating his powerful mind in tea. 

"Why, you smell rather comfortable here ! " said Wegg, seeming 
to take it ill, and stopping and sniffing as he entered. 

"I am rather comfortable, sir," said Venus. 

" You don't use lemon in your business, do you 1 " asked Wegg, 
sniffing again. 

" No, Mr. Wegg," said Venus. " When I use it at all, I mostly 
use it in cobblers' punch." 

" What do you call cobblers' punch 1 " demanded Wegg, in a 
worse humour than before. 

" It's difficult to impart the receipt for it, sir," returned Venus, 
"because, however particular you may be in allotting your mate- 
rials, so much will still depend upon the individual gifts, and there 
being a feeling thrown into it. But the groundwork is gin." 

"In a Dutch bottle ? " said Wegg gloomily, as he sat himself 
down. 

" Very good, sir, very good ! " cried Venus. " Will you par- 
take, sir 1 " 

"Will I partake ?" returned Wegg very surlily. "Why, of 
course I will ! Will a man partake, as has been tormented out of 
his five senses by an everlasting dustman with his head tied up ! 
Will he, too ! As if he wouldn't ! " 

" Don't let it put you out, Mr. Wegg. You don't seem in your 
usual spirits." 

"If you come to that, you don't seem in your usual spirits," 
growled Wegg. "You seem to be setting up for lively." 

This circumstance appeared, in his then state of mind, to give 
Mr. Wegg uncommon offfence. 

"And you've been having your hair cut !" said Wegg, missing 
the usual dusty shock. 

" Yes, Mr. Wegg. But don't let that put you out, either." 

"And I am blest if you ain't getting fat!" said Wegg, with 
culminating discontent. " What are you going to do next 1 " 

" Well, Mr. Wegg," said Venus, smiling in a sprightly manner, 
" I suspect you could hardly guess what I am going to do next." 

"I don't want to guess," retorted Wegg. "All I've got to 
say is, that it's well for you that the diwision of labour has been 
what it has been. It's well for you to have had so light a part in 



750 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

this business, when mine has been so heavy. You haven't had 
your rest broke, I'll be bound." 

" Not at all, sir," said Venus. " Never rested so well in all my 
life, I thank you." 

"Ah!" grumbled Wegg, "you should have been me. If you 
had been me, and had been fretted out of your bed, and your sleep, 
and your meals, and your mind, for a stretch of months together, 
yozt'd have been out of condition and out of sorts." 

"Certainly it has trained you down, Mr. Wegg," said Venus, 
contemplating his figure with an artist's eye. " Trained you down 
very low, it has ! So weazen and yellow is the kivering upon your 
bones, that one might almost fancy you had come to give a look-in 
upon the French gentleman in the corner, instead of me." 

Mr. Wegg, glancing in great dudgeon towards the French gen- 
tleman's corner, seemed to notice something new there, which in- 
duced him to glance at the opposite corner, and then to put on his 
glasses and stare at all the nooks and corners of the dim shop in 
succession, 

" Why, you've been having the place cleaned up ! " he exclaimed. 

"Yes, Mr, Wegg, By the hand of adorable woman," 

"Then what you're going to do next, I suppose, is to get 
married % " 

"That's it, sir," 

Silas took off his glasses again — finding himself too intensely 
disgusted by the sprightly appearance of his friend and partner to 
bear a magnified view of him, and made the inquiry : 

" To the old party ? " 

" Mr. Wegg ! " said Venus, with a sudden flush of wrath. " The 
lady in question is not a old party." 

"I meant," explained Wegg, testily, "to the party as formerly 
objected?" 

"Mr, Wegg," said Venus, "in a case of so much delicacy, I 
must trouble you to say what you mean. There are strings that 
must not be played upon. No, sir ! Not sounded, unless in the 
most respectful and tuneful manner. Of such melodious strings is 
Miss Pleasant Riderhood formed," 

" Then it i& the lady as formerly objected ? " said Wegg, 

" Sir," returned Venus with dignity, " I accept the altered phrase. 
It is the lady as formerly objected." 

"When is it to come off?" asked Silas. 

"Mr. Wegg," said Venus, with another flush. "I cannot per- 
mit it to be put in the form of a Flight. I must temperately but 
firndy call upon you, sir, to amend that question." 

" When is the lady," Wegg reluctantly demanded, constraining 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 751 

his ill-temper in remembrance of the partnership and its stock in 
trade, "a going to give her 'and where she has already given her 
'art?" 

"Sir," returned Venus, "I again accept the altered phrase, and 
with pleasure. The lady is a going to give her 'and where she has 
already given her 'art, next Monday." 

" Then the lady's objection has been met 1 " said Silas. 

" Mr. Wegg," said Venus, " as I did name to you, I think, on a 
former occasion, if not on former occasions — " 

" On former occasions," interrupted Wegg. 

" — What," pursued Venus, "what the nature of the lady's 
objection was, I may impart, without violating any of the tender 
confidences since sprung up between the lady and myself, how it 
has been met, through the kind interference of two good friends of 
mine : one previously acquainted with the lady : and one, not. The 
pint was thrown out, sir, by those two friends when they did me 
the great service of waiting on the lady to try if a union betwixt 
the lady and me could not be brought to bear — the pint, I say, 
was thrown out by them, sir, whether if, after marriage, I confined 
myself to the articulation of men, children, and the lower animals, 
it might not relieve the lady's mind of her feeling respecting being 
— as a lady — regarded in a bony light. It was a happy thought, 
sir, and it took root." 

"It would seem, Mr. Venus," observed Wegg, with a touch of 
distrust, " that you are flush of friends 1 " 

"Pretty well, sir," that gentleman answered, in a tone of placid 
mystery. " So-so, sir. Pretty well." 

" However," said Wegg, after eyeing him with another touch of 
distrust, "I wish you joy. One man spends his fortune in one 
way, and another in another. You are going to try matrimony. 
I mean to try travelling." 

"Indeed, Mr. Wegg?" 

" Change of air, sea-scenery, and my natural rest, I hope may 
bring me round after the persecutions I have undergone from the 
dustman with his head tied up, which I just now mentioned. The 
tough job being ended and the Mounds laid low, the hour is come 
for Boffin to stump up. Would ten to-morrow morning suit you, 
partner, for finally bringing Boffin's nose to the grindstone ? " 

Ten to-morrow morning would quite suit Mr. Venus for that 
excellent purpose. 

" You have had him well under inspection, I hope ? " said Silas. 

Mr. Venus had had him under inspection pretty well every day. 

" Suppose you was just to step round to-night then, and give him 
orders from me — I say from me, because he knows / won't be 



752 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

played with — to be ready with his papers, his accounts, and his 
cash, at that time in the morning?" said Wegg. " As a matter of 
form, which will be agreeable to your own feelings, before we go 
out (for I'll walk with you part of the way, though my leg gives 
under me with weariness), let's have a look at the stock in trade." 

Mr. Venus produced it, and it was perfectly correct ; Mr. Venus 
undertook to produce it again in the morning, and to keep tryst 
with Mr. Wegg on Boffin's doorstep as the clock struck ten. At a 
certain point of the road between Clerkenwell and Boffin's house 
(Mr. Wegg expressly insisted that there should be no prefix to the 
Golden Dustman's name) the partners separated for the night. 

It was a very bad night ; to which succeeded a very bad morn- 
ing. The streets were so unusually slushy, muddy, and miserable 
in the morning, that Wegg rode to the scene of action ; arguing 
that a man who was, as it were, going to the Bank to draw out a 
handsome property, could well afford that trifling expense. 

Venus was punctual, and Wegg undertook to knock at the door, 
and conduct the conference. Door knocked at. Door opened. 

"Boffin at home?" 

The servant replied that Mr. Boffin was at home. 

"He'll do," said Wegg; "though it ain't what I call him." 

The servant inquired if they had any appointment ? 

"Now, I tell you what, young fellow," said Wegg, "I won't 
have it. This won't do for me. I don't want menials. I want 
Boffin." 

They were shown into a waiting-room, where the all-powerful 
Wegg wore his hat, and whistled, and with his forefinger stirred up 
a clock that stood upon the chimney-piece, until he made it strike. 
In a few minutes they were shown up-stairs into what used to be 
Boffin's room; which, besides the door of entrance, had folding- 
doors in it, to make it one of a suite of rooms when occasion re- 
quired. Here, Boffin was seated at a library-table, and here Mr. 
Wegg, having imperiously motioned the servant to withdraw, drew 
up a chair and seated himself, in his hat, close beside him. Here, 
also, Mr. Wegg instantly underwent the remarkable experience of 
having his hat twitched off" his head and thrown out of a Avindow, 
which was opened and shut for the purpose. 

" Be careful what insolent liberties you take in that gentleman's 
presence," said the owner of the hand which had done this, " or I 
will throw you after it." 

Wegg involuntarily clapped his hand to his bare head, and 
stared at the Secretary. For, it was he addressed him with a 
severe countenance, and who had come in quietly by the folding- 
doors. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 753 

" Oh ! " said Wegg, as soon as he recovered his suspended power 
of speech. " Very good ! I gave directions for you to be dismissed. 
And you ain't gone, ain't you % Oh ! We'll look into this presently. 
Very good ! " 

" No, nor / ain't gone," said another voice. 

Somebody else had come in quietly by the folding-doors. Turn- 
ing- his head, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the ever-wakeful dust- 
man, accoutred with fantail hat and velveteen smalls complete. 
Who, untying his tied-up broken head, revealed a head that was 
whole, and a face that was Sloppy's. 

" Ha, ha, ha, gentlemen ! " roared Sloppy, in a peal of laughter, 
and with immeasurable relish. "He never thought as I could sleep 
standing, and often done it when I turned for Mrs, Higden ! He 
never thought as I used to give Mrs. Higden the Police-news in dif- 
ferent voices ! But I did lead him a life all through it, gentlemen, 
I hope I really and truly did ! " Here, Mr. Sloppy opening his 
mouth to a quite alarming extent, and throwing back his head to 
peal again, revealed incalculable buttons. 

" Oh ! " said Wegg, slightly discomfited, but not much as yet : 
" one and one is two not dismissed, is it % Bof — fin ! Just let me 
ask a question. Who set this chap on, in this dress, when the cart- 
ing began ? Who employed this fellow ? " 

" I say ! " remonstrated Sloppy, jerking his head forward. " No 
fellows, or /'ll throw you out of winder ! " 

Mr. Bofiin appeased him with a wave of his hand, and said : " I 
employed him, Wegg." 

" Oh ! You employed him. Boffin ? Very good. Mr. Venus, 
we raise our terms, and we can't do better than proceed to business. 
Bof— fin ! I want the room cleared of these two scum." 

" That's not going to be done, Wegg," replied Mr. Boffin, sitting 
composedly on the library-table, at one end, while the Secretary sat 
composedly on it at the other. 

" Bof — fin ! Not going to be done % " repeated Wegg. " Not at 
your peril ? " 

"No, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin, shaking his head good-humouredly. 
"Not at my peril, and not on any other terms." 

Wegg reflected a moment, and then said : " Mr. Venus, will you 
be so good as hand me over that same dockyment ? " 

" Certainly, sir," replied Venus, handing it to him with much 
politeness. " There it is. Having now, sir, parted with it, I wish 
to make a small observation : not so much because it is anyways 
necessary, or expresses any new doctrine or discovery, as because 
it is a comfort to my mind. Silas Wegg, you are a precious old 
rascal." 

3c 



754 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Mr. Wegg, who, as if anticipating a compliment, had been beat- 
ing time witli the paper to the other's politeness until this unex- 
pected conclusion came upon him, stopped rather abruptly. 

"Silas Wegg," said Venus, "know that I took the liberty of 
taking Mr. Boffin into our concern as a sleeping partner, at a very 
early period of our firm's existence." 

" Quite true," added Mr. Boffin; " and I tested Venus by making 
him a pretended proposal or two ; and I found him on the whole a 
very honest man, Wegg." 

"So Mr. Boffin, in his indulgence, is pleased to say," Venus 
remarked : " though in the beginning of this dirt, my hands were 
not, for a few hours, quite as clean as I could wish. But I hope I 
made early and full amends." 

"Venus, you did," said Mr. Boffin. "Certainly, certainly, 
certainly." 

Venus inclined his head with respect and gratitude. " Thank 
you, sir. I am much obliged to you, sir, for all. For your good 
opinion now, for your way of receiving and encouraging me when I 
first put myself in communication with you, and for the influence 
since so kindly brought to bear upon a certain lady, both by your- 
self and by Mr. John Harmon." To whom, when thus making 
mention of him, he also bowed. 

Wegg followed the name with sharp ears, and the action with 
sharp eyes, and a certain cringing air was infusing itself into his 
bullying air, when his attention was reclaimed by Venus. 

"Everything else between you and me, Mr. Wegg," said Venus, 
" now explains itself, and you can now make out, sir, without 
further words from me. But totally to prevent any unpleasantness 
or mistake that might arise on what I consider an important point, 
to be made quite clear at the close of our acquaintance, I beg the 
leave of Mr. Boffin and Mr. John Harmon to repeat an observation 
which I have already had the pleasure of bringing under your 
notice. You are a precious old rascal ! " 

"You are a fool," said Wegg, with a snap of his fingers, "and 
I'd have got rid of you before now, if I could have struck out any 
way of doing it. I have thought it over, I can tell you. You may 
go and welcome. You leave the more for me. Because, you know," 
said Wegg, dividing his next observation between Mr. Boffin and 
Mr. Harmon, " I am worth my price, and I mean to have it. This 
getting oft' is all very well in its way, and it tells with such an ana- 
tomical Pump as tliis one," pointing out Mr. Venus, "but it won't 
do with a Man. I am here to be bought off", and I have named 
my figure. Now, buy me, or leave me." 

"I'll leave you, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin, laughing, "as far as I 
am concerned." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 755 

" Bof— fin ! " replied Wegg, turning upon him with a severe air. 
"I understand your new-born boldness. I see the brass under- 
neath your silver plating. You have got your nose put out of 
joint. Knowing that you've nothing at stake, you can afford to 
come the independent game. Why, you're just so much smeaiy 
glass to see through, you know ! But Mr. Harmon is in another 
sitiwation. What Mr. Harmon risks, is quite another pair of shoes. 
Now, I've heerd something lately about this being Mr. Harmon — 
I make out now, some hints that I've met on that subject in the 
newspaper — and I drop you, Bof — fin, as beneath my notice. I 
ask Mr. Harmon whether he has any idea of the contents of this 
present paper 1 " 

" It is a will of my late father's, of more recent date than the 
will proved by Mr. Bofiin (address whom again, as you have 
addressed him already, and I'll knock you down), leaving the whole 
of his property to the Crown," said John Harmon, with as much 
indifference as was compatible with extreme sternness. 

"Right you are !" cried Wegg. "Then," screwing the weight 
of his body upon his wooden leg, and screwing liis wooden head 
very much on one side, and screwing up one eye : " then, I put the 
question to you, what's this paper worth ? " 

" Nothing," said John Harmon. 

Wegg had repeated the word with a sneer, and was entering on 
some sarcastic retort, when, to his boundless amazement, he found 
himself gripped by the cravat ; shaken until his teeth chattered ; 
shoved back, staggering, into a corner of the room ; and pinned 
there. 

" You scoundrel ! " said John Harmon, whose seafaring hold was 
like that of a vice. 

" You're knocking my head against the wall," urged Silas faintly. 

"I mean to knock your head against the wall," returned John 
Harmon, suiting his action to his words, with the heartiest good- 
will ; " and I'd give a thousand pounds for leave to knock your 
brains out. Listen, you scoundrel, and look at that Dutch bottle." 

Sloppy held it up, for his edification. 

" That Dutch bottle, scoundrel, contained the latest will of the 
many wills made by my unhappy self-tormenting fixther. That 
will gives everything absolutely to my noble benefactor and yours, 
Mr. Boffin, excluding and reviling me, and my sister (then already 
dead of a broken heart), by name. That Dutch bottle was found 
by my noble benefactor and yours, after he entered on possession 
of the estate. That Dutch bottle distressed him beyond measure, 
because, though I and my sister were both no more, it cast a slur 
upon our memory which he knew we had done nothing in our mis- 



756 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

erable youth, to deserve. That Dutch bottle, therefore, he buried 
in the Mound belonging to him, and there it lay while you, you 
thankless wretch, were prodding and poking — often very near it, 
1 dare say. His intention was, that it should never see the light ; 
but he was afraid to destroy it, lest to destroy such a document, 
even with his great generous motive, might be an offence at law. 
After the discovery was made here who I was, Mr. Boffin, still rest- 
less on the subject, told me, upon certain conditions impossible for 
such a hound as you to appreciate, the secret of that Dutch bottle. 
I urged upon him the necessity of its being dug up and the paper 
being legally produced and established. The first thing you saw 
him do, and the second thing has been done without your knowledge. 
Consequently, the paper now rattling in your hand as I shake you 

— and I should like to shake the life out of you — is worth less 
than the rotten cork of the Dutch bottle, do you understand ? " 

Judging from the fallen countenance of Silas as his head wagged 
backwards and forwards in a most uncomfortable manner, he did 
understand. 

"Now, scoundrel," said John Harmon, taking another sailor-like 
turn on his cravat and holding him in his corner at arm's length, 
" I shall make two more short speeches to you, because I hope 
they will torment you. Your discovery was a genuine discovery 
(such as it was), for nobody had thought of looking into that place. 
Neither did we know you had made it, until Venus spoke to Mr. 
Boffin, though I kept you under good observation from my first 
appearance here, and though Sloppy has long made it the chief 
occupation and delight of his life, to attend you like your shadow. 
I tell you this, that you may know we knew enough of you to 
persuade Mr. Boffin to let us lead you on, deluded to the last pos- 
sible moment, in order that your disappointment might be the 
heaviest possible disappointment. That's the first short speech, 
do you understand 1 " 

Here John Harmon assisted his comprehension with another 
shake. 

"Now, scoundrel," he pursued, "I am going to finish. You 
supposed me just now to be the possessor of my father's property. 

— So I am. But through any act of my father's or by any right 
I have 1 No. Through the munificence of Mr. Boffin. The con- 
ditions that he made with me, before parting with the secret of 
the Dutch bottle, were, that I should take the fortune, and that 
he should take his Mound and no more. I owe everything I pos- 
sess, solely to the disinterestedness, uprightness, tenderness, good- 
ness (there are no words to satisfy me) of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin. And 
when, knowing what I knew, I saw such a mud-worm as you pre- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 757 

sume to rise in this house against this noble soul, the wonder is," 
added John Harmon through his clenched teeth, and with a very- 
ugly turn indeed on Wegg's cravat, " that I didn't try to twist 
your head off, and fling that out of window ! So. That's the last 
short speech, do you understand 1 " 

Silas, released, put his hand to his throat, cleared it, and looked 
as if he had rather a large fishbone in that region. Simultaneously 
with this action on his part in his corner, a singidar, and on the 
surface an incomprehensible, movement was made by Mr. Sloppy : 
who began backing towards Mr. Wegg along the wall, in the man- 
ner of a porter or heaver who is about to lift a sack of flour or 
coals. 

"I am sorry, Wegg," said Mr. Bofiin, in his clemency, "that my 
old lady and I can't have a better opinion of you than the bad one 
we are forced to entertain. But I shouldn't like to leave you, after 
all said and done, worse off in life than I found you. Therefore say 
in a word, before we part, what it'll cost to set you up in another 
stall." 

"And in another place," John Harmon struck in. "You don't 
come outside these windows." 

"Mr. Boffin," returned Wegg in avaricious humiliation: "when 
I first had the honour of making your acquaintance, I had got 
together a collection of ballads which was, I may say, above price." 

"Then they can't be paid for," said John Harmon, "and you 
had better not try, my dear sir." 

"Pardon me, Mr. Boffin," resumed Wegg, with a malignant 
glance in the last speaker's direction, " I was putting the case to 
you, who, if my senses did not deceive me, put the case to me. I 
had a very choice collection of ballads, and there was a new stock 
of gingerbread in the tin box. I say no more, but would rather 
leave it to you." 

" But it's difficult to name what's right," said Mr. Boffin uneasily, 
with his hand in his pocket, "and I don't want to go beyond what's 
right, because you really have turned out such a very bad fellow. 
So artful, and so ungrateful you have been, Wegg ; for when did I 
ever injure you 1 " 

" There was also," Mr. Wegg went on, in a meditative manner, 
"a errand connection, in Avhich I was much respected. But I 
would not wish to be deemed covetous, and I would rather leave it 
to you, Mr. Boffin." 

"Upon my word, I don't know what to put it at," the Golden 
Dustman muttered. 

"There was likewise," resumed Wegg, "a pair of trestles, for 
which alone a Irish person, who was deemed a judge of trestles, 



758 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

ottered five and six — a sum I would not hear of, for I should have 
lost by it — and there was a stool, a umbrella, a clothes-horse, and 
a tray. But I leave it to you, Mr. Bottin." 

The Golden Dustman seeming to be engaged in some abstruse 
calculation, Mr. Wegg assisted him with the following additional 
items. 

" There was, further. Miss Elizabeth, Master Greorge, Aunt Jane, 
and Uncle Parker. Ah ! When a man thinks of the loss of such 
patronage as that ; when a man finds so fair a garden rooted up by 
pigs ; he finds it hard indeed, without going high, to work it into 
money. But I leave it wholly to you, sir." 

Mr. Sloppy still continued his singidar, and on the surface his 
incomprehensible, movement. 

" Leading on has been mentioned," said Wegg with a melancholy 
air, " and it's not easy to say how far the tone of my mind may have 
been lowered by unwholesome reading on the subject of Misers, when 
you was leading me and others on to think you one yourself, sir. 
All I can say is, that I felt my tone of mind a lowering at the time. 
And how can a man put a price upon his mind ! There was like- 
wise a hat just now. But I leave the ole to you, Mr. Boffin." 

" Come ! " said Mr. Boffin. " Here's a couple of pound." 

"In justice to myself, I couldn't take it, sir." 

The words were but out of his mouth when John Harmon lifted 
his finger, and Sloppy, who was now close to Wegg, backed to 
Wegg's back, stooped, grasped his coat collar behind with both 
hands, and deftly swung him up like the sack of flour or coals 
before mentioned. A countenance of special discontent and amaze- 
ment Mr. Wegg exhibited in this position, with his buttons almost 
as prominently on view as Sloppy's own, and with his wooden leg 
in a highly unaccommodating state. But, not for many seconds 
was his countenance visible in the room ; for. Sloppy lightly trotted 
out with him and trotted down the staircase, Mr. Venus attending 
to open the street door. Mr. Sloppy's instructions had been to 
deposit his burden in the road ; but a scavenger's cart happening 
to stand unattended at the corner, with its little ladder planted 
against the wheel, Mr. S. found it impossible to resist the temp- 
tation of shooting Mr. Silas Wegg into the cart's contents. A 
somewhat difficult feat, achieved with great dexterity, and with a 
prodigious splash. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 769 

CHAPTER XV. 

WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS THAT WERE SET. 

How Bradley Headstone had been racked and riven in his mind 
since the quiet evening when by the river-side he had risen, as it 
were, out of the ashes of the Bargeman, none but he could have 
told. Not even he could have told, for such misery can only be 
felt. 

First, he had to bear the combined weight of the knowledge of 
what he had done, of that haunting reproach that he might have 
done it so much better, and of the dread of discovery. This was 
load enough to crush him, and he laboured under it day and night. 
It was as heavy on him in his scanty sleep, as in his red-eyed wak- 
ing hours. It bore him down with a dread unchanging monotony, 
in which there was not a moment's variety. The overweighted 
beast of burden, or the overweighted slave, can for certain instants 
shift the physical load, and find some slight respite even in enforc- 
ing additional pain upon such a set of muscles or such a limb. 
Not even that poor mockery of relief could the wretched man 
obtain, under the steady pressure of the infernal atmosphere into 
which he had entered. 

Time went by, and no visible suspicion dogged him ; time went 
by, and in such public accounts of the attack as were renewed at 
intervals, he began to see Mr. Lightwood (who acted as lawyer for 
the injured man) straying further from the fact, going wider of the 
issue, and evidently slackening in his zeal. By degrees, a glimmer- 
ing of the cause of this began to break on Bradley's sight. Then 
came the chance encounter with Mr. Milvey at the railway station 
(where he often lingered in his leisure hours, as a place where any 
fresh news of his deed would be circulated, or any placard referring 
to it would be posted), and then he saw in the light what he had 
brought about. 

For, then he saw that through his desperate attempt to separate 
those two for ever, he had been made the means of uniting them. 
That he had dipped his hands in blood, to mark himself a misera- 
ble fool and tool. That Eugene Wrayburn, for his wife's sake, set 
him aside and left him to crawl along his blasted course. He 
thought of Fate, or Providence, or be the directing Power what it 
might, as having put a fraud upon him — overreached him — and 
in his impotent mad rage bit, and tore, and had his fit. 

New assurance of the truth came upon him in the next few fol- 
lowing days, when it was put forth how the wounded man had 
been married on his bed, and to whom ; and how, though always 



760 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

in a dangerous condition, he was a shade better. Bradley would 
far rather have been seized for his murder, than he would have 
read that passage, knowing himself sjDared, and knowing why. 

But, not to be still further defrauded and overreached — which 
he would be, if implicated by Riderhood, and punished by the law 
for his abject failure, as though it had been a success — he kept 
close in his school during the day, ventured out warily at night, 
and went no more to the railway station. He examined the adver- 
tisements in the newspapers for any sign that Riderhood acted on 
his hinted threat of so summoning him to renew their acquaint- 
ance, but found none. Having paid him handsomely for the 
support and accommodation he had had at the Lock House, and 
knowing him to be a very ignorant man who could not write, he 
began to doubt whether he was to be feared at all, or whether 
they need ever meet again. 

AH this time, his mind was never off the rack, and his raging 
sense of having been made to fling himself across the chasm which 
divided those two, and bridge it over for their coming together, 
never cooled down. This horrible condition brought on other fits. 
He could not have said how many, or when ; but he saw in the 
faces of his pupils that they had seen him in that state, and that 
they were possessed by a dread of his relapsing. 

One winter day when a slight fall of snow was feathering the 
sills and frames of the school-room windows, he stood at his black- 
board, crayon in hand, about to commence with a class ; when, 
reading in the countenances of those boys that there was something 
wrong, and that they seemed in alarm for him, he turned his eyes 
to the door towards which they faced. He then saw a slouching 
man of forbidding appearance standing in the midst of the school, 
with a bundle under his arm ; and saw that it was Riderhood. 

He sat down on a stool which one of the boys put for him, and 
he had a passing knowledge that he was in danger of falling, and 
that his face was becoming distorted. But, the fit went off for 
that time, and he wiped his mouth, and stood up again. 

" Beg your pardon, governor ! By your leave ! " said Riderhood, 
knuckling his forehead, with a chuckle and a leer. " What place 
may this be ? " 

" This is a school." 

" Where young folks learns wot's right 1 " said Riderhood, gravely 
nodding. " Beg your pardon, governor ! By your leave ! But 
who teaches this school ? " 

"I do." 

"You're the master, are you, learned governor? " 

"Yes. I am the master." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 761 

"And a lovely thing it must be," said Riderhood, "fur to learn 
young folks wot's right, and fur to know wot they know wot you 
do it. Beg your pardon, learned governor ! By your leave ! — 
That there blackboard ; wot's it for 1 " 

"It is for drawing on, or writing on." 

" Is it though ! " said Riderhood. " Who'd have thought it, 
from the looks on it ! Would you be so kind as write your name 
upon it, learned governor?" (In a wheedling tone.) 

Bradley hesitated for a moment ; but placed his usual signature, 
enlarged, upon the board. 

" I ain't a learned character myself," said Riderhood, surveying 
the class, "but I do admire learning in others. I should dearly 
like to hear these here young folks read that there name off, from 
the writing." 

The arms of the class went up. At the miserable master's nod, 
the shrill chorus arose : " Bradley Headstone ! " 

"No?" cried Riderhood. "You don't mean it? Headstone! 
Why, that's in a churchyard. Hooroar for another turn ! " 

Another tossing of arms, another nod, and another shrill chorus : 
" Bradley Headstone ! " 

" I've got it now ! " said Riderhood, after attentively listening, 
and internally repeating : " Bradley. I see. Chris'en name, Brad- 
ley, sim'lar to Roger which is my own. Eh ? Family name, Head- 
stone, sim'lar to Riderhood which is my own. Eh ? " 

Shrill chorus : "Yes!" 

" Might you be acquainted, learned governor," said Riderhood, 
" with a person about your own heighth and breadth, and wot 'ud 
pull down in a scale about your own weight, answering to a name 
sounding summat like T'otherest ? " 

With a desperation in him that made him perfectly quiet, though 
his jaw was heavily squared ; with his eyes upon Riderhood ; and 
with traces of quickened breathing in his nostrils, the schoolmaster 
replied, in a suppressed voice, after a pause : "I think I know the 
man you mean." 

" I thought you knowed the man I mean, learned governor. I 
want the man." 

With a half glance around him at his pupils, Bradley returned : 
" Do you suppose he is here ? " 

"Begging your pardon, learned governor, and by your leave," 
said Riderhood, with a laugh, "how could I suppose he's here, 
when there's nobody here but you, and me, and these young lambs 
wot you're a learning on ? But he is most excellent company, that 
man, and I want him to come and see me at my Lock, up the 
river," 



762 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

" I'U tell him so." 

" D'ye think he'll come 1 " asked Riderhood. 

" I am sure he will." 

"Having got your word for him," said Riderhood, "I shall 
count upon him. P'raps you'd so far obleege me, learned governor, 
as tell him that if he don't come precious soon, I'll look him up." 

" He shall know it." 

" Thankee. As I says awhile ago," pursued Riderhood, chang- 
ing his hoarse tone and leering round upon the class again, " though 
not a learned character my own self, I do admire learning in others, 
to be sure ! Being here and having met with your kind attention. 
Master, might I, afore I go, ask a question of these here young 
lambs of yourn ? " 

"If it is in the way of school," said Bradley, always sustaining 
his dark look at the other, and speaking in his suppressed voice, 
" you may." 

" Oh ! It's in the way of school ! " cried Riderhood. " I'll 
pound it. Master, to be in the way of school. Wot's the diwisions 
of water, my lambs ? Wot sorts of water is there on the land 1 " 

Shrill chorus : " Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds." 

" Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds," said Riderhood. " They've 
got all the lot. Master ! Blowed if I shouldn't have loft out lakes, 
never having clapped eyes upon one, to my knowledge. Seas, 
rivers, lakes, and ponds. Wot is it, lambs, as they ketches in 
seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds 1 " 

Shrill chorus (with some contempt for the ease of the question) : 
"Fish!" 

" Good agin ! " said Riderhood. " But wot else is it, my lambs, 
as they sometimes ketches in rivers 1 " 

Chorus at a loss. One shrill voice : " Weed ! " 

" Good agin ! " cried Riderhood. " But it ain't weed neither. 
You'll never guess, my dears. Wot is it, besides fish, as they some- 
times ketches in rivers ? Well ! I'll tell you. It's suits o' clothes." 

Bradley's face changed. 

" Leastways, lambs," said Riderhood, observing him out of the 
corners of his eyes, " that's wot I my own self sometimes ketches 
in rivers. For strike me blind, my lambs, if I didn't ketch in a 
river the wery bundle under my arm ! " 

The class looked at the master, as if appealing from the irregular 
entrapment of this mode of examination. The master looked at 
the examiner, as if he would have torn him to pieces. 

" I ask your pardon, learned governor," said Riderhood, smearing 
his sleeve across his mouth as he laughed with a relish, " 'tain't fair 
to the lambs, I know. It wos a bit of fun of mine. But upon 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 763 

my soul I drawed this here bundle out of a river ! It's a Barge- 
man's suit of clothes. You see, it had been sunk there by the 
man as wore it, and I got it up." 

" How do you know it was sunk there by the man who wore 
it ? " asked Bradley. 

"'Cause I see him do it," said Riderhood. 

They looked at each other. Bradley, slowly withdrawing his 
eyes, turned his face to the blackboard and slowly wiped his name 
out. 

" A heap of thanks. Master," said Riderhood, " for bestowing 
so much of your time, and of the lambses' time, upon a man as 
hasn't got no other recommendation to you than being a honest 
man. Wishing to see at my Lock up the river, the person as we've 
spoke of, and as you've answered for, I takes my leave of the 
lambs and of their learned governor both." 

With those words, he slouched out of the school, leaving the 
master to get through his weary work as he might, and leaving the 
whispering pupils to observe the master's face until he fell into 
the fit which had been long impending. 

The next day but one was Saturday, and a holiday. Bradley 
rose early, and set out on foot for Plashwater Weir-Mill Lock. 
He rose so early that it was not yet light when he began his 
journey. Before extinguishing the candle by which he had dressed 
himself, he made a little parcel of his decent silver watch and its 
decent guard, and wrote inside the paper : " Kindly take care of 
these for me." He then addressed the parcel to Miss Peecher, and 
left it on the most protected corner of the little seat in her little porch. 

It was a cold hard easterly morning when he latched the garden 
gate and turned away. The light snowfall which had feathered 
his school-room windows on the Thursday, still lingered in the air, 
and was falling white, while the wind blew black. The tardy day 
did not appear until lie had been on foot two hours, and had trav- 
ersed a great part of London from east to west. Such breakfast 
as he had, he took at the comfortless public-house where he had 
parted from Riderhood on the occasion of their night-walk. He 
took it, standing at the littered bar, and looked loweringly at a 
man who stood where Riderhood had stood that early morning. 

He outwalked the short day, and was on the towing-path by the 
river, somewhat footsore, when the night closed in. Still two or 
three miles short of the Lock, he slackened his pace then, but 
went steadily on. The ground was now covered with snow, though 
thinly, and there were floating lumps of ice in the more exposed 
parts of the river, and broken sheets of ice under the shelter of the 
banks. He took heed of nothing but the ice, the snow, and the - 



764 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

distance, until he saw a light ahead, which he knew gleamed from 
the Lock-house window. It arrested his steps, and he looked all 
around. The ice, and the snow, and he, and the one light, had abso- 
lute possession of the dreary scene. In the distance before him 
lay the place where he had struck the worse than useless blows 
tliat mocked him with Lizzie's presence there as Eugene's wife. 
In the distance behind him, lay the place where the children with 
pointing arms had seemed to devote him to the demons in crying 
out his name. Within there, where the light was, was the man 
who as to botli distances could give him up to ruin. To these 
limits had his world shrunk. 

He mended his pace, keeping his eyes upon the light with a 
strange intensity, as if he were taking aim at it. When he 
approached it so nearly as that it parted into rays, they seemed to 
fasten themselves to him and draw him on. When he struck the 
door with his hand, his foot followed so quickly on his liand, that 
he was in the room before he was bidden to enter. 

The light was the joint product of a fire and a candle. Between 
the two, with his feet on the iron fender, sat Riderhood, pipe in 
mouth. 

He looked up with a surly nod when his visitor came in. His 
visitor looked down with a surly nod. His outer clothing removed, 
the visitor then took a seat on the opposite side of the fire. 

" Not a smoker, I think ? " said Riderhood, pushing a bottle to 
him across the table. 

''No." 

They both lapsed into silence, with their eyes upon the fire. 

"You don't need to be told I am here," said Bradley at length. 
" Who is to begin 1 " 

"I'll begin," said Riderhood, "when I've smoked this here pipe 
out." 

He finished it with great deliberation, smoked out the ashes on 
the hob, and put it by. 

"I'll begin," he then repeated, "Bradley Headstone, Master, if 
you wish it." 

" Wish it ? I wish to know what you want with me." 

" And so you shall." Riderhood had looked hard at his hands 
and his pockets, apparently as a precautionary measure lest lie 
should have any weapon about him. But, he now leaned forward, 
turning the collar of his waistcoat with an inquisitive finger, and 
asked, "Why, where's your watch?" 

"I have left it behind." 

"I want it. But it can be fetched. I've took a fancy to it." 

Bradley answered with a contemptuous laugli. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 765 

" I want it," repeated Riderhood, in a louder voice, " and I mean 
to have it." 

" That is what you want of me, is it? " 

"No," said Riderhood, still louder; "it's on'y part of what I 
want of you. I want money of you." 

"Anything else?" 

"Everythink else !" roared Riderhood, in a very loud and furi- 
ous way. " Answer me like that, and I won't talk to you at all." 

Bradley looked at him. 

" Don't so much as look at me like that, or I won't talk to you 
at all," vociferated Riderhood. " But, instead of talking, I'll bring 
my hand down upon you with all its weight," heavily smiting the 
table with great force, "and smash you !" 

" Go on," said Bradley, after moistening his lips. 

"Oh! I'm a going on. Don't you fear but I'll go on full-fast 
enough for you, and fur enough for you, without your telling. 
Look here, Bradley Headstone, Master. You might have split the 
T'other governor to chips and wedges without my caring, except 
that I might have come upon you for a glass or so now and then. 
Else why have to do with you at all ? But when you copied my 
clothes, and when you copied my neckhankercher, and when you 
shook blood upon me after you had done the trick, you did wot I'll 
be paid for and paid heavy for. If it come to be throw'd upon 
you, you was to be ready to throw it upon me, was you ? Where 
else but in Plashwater Weir-Mill Lock was there a man dressed 
according as described ? Where else but in Plashwater Weir-Mill 
Lock was there a man as had had words with him coming through 
in his boat ? Look at the Lock-keeper in Plasli water AVeir-Mill 
Lock, in them same answering clothes and w^ith that same answer- 
ing red neckhankercher, and see whether his clothes happens to be 
bloody or not. Yes, they do happen to be bloody. Ah, you sly 
devil ! " 

Bradley, very white, sat looking at him in silence. 

"But two could play at your game," said Riderhood, snapping 
his fingers at him half a dozen times, "and I played it long ago; 
long afore you tried your clumsy hand at it; in days when you 
hadn't begun croaking your lecters or what not in your school. I 
know to a figure how you done it. Where you stole away, I could 
steal away arter you, and do it kno winger than you. I know how 
you come away from London in your own clothes, and where you 
changed your clothes, and hid your clothes. I see you with my 
own eyes take your own clothes from their hiding-place among them 
felled trees, and take a dip in the river to account for your dressing 
yourself, to any one as might come by. I see you rise up Bradley 



766 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

Headstone, Master, where you sat down Bargeman. I see you 
pitch your Bargeman's bundle into the river. I hooked your Barge- 
man's bundle out of the river. I've got your Bargeman's clothes, 
tore this way and that way with the scuffle, stained green with the 
grass, and spattered all over with what bust from the blows. I've 
got them, and I've got you. I don't care a curse for the T'other 
governor, alive or dead, but I care a many curses for my own self. 
And as you laid your plots agin me and was a sly devil agin me, 
I'll be paid for it — I'll be paid for it — I'll be paid for it — till 
I've drained you dry ! " 

Bradley looked at the fire, with a working face, and was silent 
for a while. At last he said, with what seemed an inconsistent 
composure of voice and feature : 

" You can't get blood out of a stone, Riderhood." 

" I can get money out of a schoolmaster though." 

" You can't get out of me what is not in me. You can't wrest 
from me what I have not got. Mine is but a poor calling. You 
have had more than two guineas from me, already. Do you know 
how long it has taken me (allowing for a long and arduous training) 
to earn such a sum ? " 

"I don't know, nor I don't care. Yours is a 'spectable calling. 
To save your 'spectability, it's worth your while to pawn every 
article of clothes you've got, sell every stick in your house, and beg 
and borrow every penny you can get trusted with. When you've 
done that and handed over, I'll leave you. Not afore." 

" How do you mean, you'll leave me 1 " 

"I mean as I'll keep you company, wherever you go, when you 
go away from here. Let the Lock take care of itself. I'll take 
care of you, once I've got you." 

Bradley again looked at the fire. Eyeing him aside, Riderhood 
took up his pipe, refilled it, lighted it, and sat smoking. Bradley 
leaned his elbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and 
looked at the fire with a most intent abstraction. 

" Riderhood," he said, raising himself in his chair, after a long 
silence, and drawing out his purse and putting it on the table. 
" Say I part with this, which is all the money I have ; say I let 
you have my watch; say that every quarter, when I draw my 
salary, I pay you a certain portion of it." 

"Say nothink of the sort," retorted Riderhood, shaking his head 
as he smoked. "You've got away once, and I won't run the chance 
agin. I've had trouble enough to find you, and shouldn't have 
found you if I hadn't seen you slipping along the street over-night, 
and watched you till you was safe housed. I'll have one settle- 
ment with you for good and all." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 767 

" Riderhood, I ain a man who has lived a retired life. I have 
no resources beyond myself. I have absolutely no friends." 

"That's a lie," said Riderhood, "You've got one friend as I 
knows of ; one as is good for a Savings-Bank book, or I'm a blue 
monkey ! " 

Bradley's face darkened, and his hand slowly closed on the purse 
and drew it back, as he sat listening for what the other should go 
on to say. 

"I went into the wrong shop, fust, last Thursday," said Rider- 
hood. " Found myself among the young ladies, by George ! Over 
the young ladies, I see a Missis. That Missis is sweet enough upon 
you. Master, to sell herself up, slap, to get you out of trouble. 
Make her do it then." 

Bradley stared at him so very suddenly that Riderhood, not quite 
knowing how to take it, affected to be occupied with the encircling 
smoke from his pipe ; fanning it away with his hand, and blowing 
it off. 

"You spoke to the mistress, did you?" inquired Bradley, with 
that former composure of voice and feature that seemed inconsistent, 
and with averted eyes. 

"Poof! Yes," said Riderhood, withdrawing his attention from 
the smoke. " I spoke to her, I didn't say much to her. She 
was put in a fluster by my dropping in among the young ladies 
(I never did set up for a lady's man), and she took me into her 
parlour to hope as there were nothink wrong, I tells her, ' no, 
nothink wrong. The master's my wery good friend,' But I see 
how the land laid, and that she was comfortable off," 

Bradley put the purse in his pocket, grasped his left wrist with 
his right hand, and sat rigidly contemplating the fire, 

" She couldn't live more handy to you than she does," said Rider- 
hood, " and when I goes home with you (as of course I am a going), 
I recommend you to clean her out without loss of time. You- 
can marry her, arter you and me have come to a settlement. 
She's nice-looking, and I know you can't be keeping company 
with no one else, having been so lately disapinted in another 
quarter." 

Not one other word did Bradley utter all that night. Not once 
did he change his attitude, or loosen his hold upon his wrist. 
Rigid before the fire, as if it were a charmed flame that was turning 
him old, he sat, with the dark lines deepening in his face, its stare 
becoming more and more haggard, its surface turning whiter and 
whiter as if it were being overspread with ashes, and the very text- 
ure and colour of his hair degenerating. 

Not until the late daylight made the window transparent, did 



768 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

this decaying statue move. Then it slowly arose, and sat in the 
window looking out. 

Riderhood had kept his chair all night. In the earlier part of 
the night he had muttered twice or thrice that it was bitter cold ; 
or that the fire burnt fast, when he got up to mend it ; but, as he 
could elicit from his companion neither sound nor movement, he 
had afterwards held his peace. He was making some disorderly 
preparations for coff'ee, when Bradley came from the window and 
put on his outer coat and hat. 

" Hadn't us better have a bit o' breakfast afore we start ? " said 
Riderhood. "It ain't good to freeze a empty stomach. Master." 

Without a sign to show that he heard, Bradley walked out of 
the Lock-house. Catching up from the table a piece of bread, and 
taking his Bargeman's bundle under his arm, Riderhood imme- 
diately followed him. Bradley turned towards London. Riderhood 
caught him up, and walked at his side. 

The two men trudged on, side by side, in silence, full three miles. 
Suddenly, Bradley turned to retrace his course. Instantly, Rider- 
hood turned likewise, and they went back side by side. 

Bradley re-entered the Lock-house. So did Riderhood. Bradley 
sat down in the window. Riderhood warmed himself at the fire. 
After an hour or more, Bradley abruptly got up again, and again 
went out, but this time turned the other way. Riderhood was 
close after him, caught him up in a few paces, and walked at his 
side. 

This time, as before, when he found his attendant not to be 
shaken off", Bradley suddenly turned back. This time, as before, 
Riderhood turned back along with him. But, not this time, as 
before, did they go into the Lock-house, for Bradley came to a 
stand on the snow-covered turf by the Lock, looking up the river 
and down the river. Navigation was impeded by the frost, and 
the scene was a mere white and yellow desert. 

" Come, come, Master," urged Riderhood, at his side. " This is 
a dry game. And where's the good of it 1 You can't get rid of 
me, except by coming to a settlement. I am a going along with 
you wherever you go." 

Witliout a word of reply, Bradley passed quickly from him over 
the wooden bridge on the Lock gates. " Why, there's even less 
sense in this move than t'other," said Riderhood, following. " The 
Weir's there, and you'll have to come back, you know." 

Without taking the least notice, Bradley leaned his body against 
a post, in a resting attitude, and there rested with his eyes cast 
down. "Being brought here," said Riderhood, gruffly, "I'll turn 
it to some use by changing my gates." With a rattle and a msh 



770 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

of water, he then swung-to the Lock gates that were standing open, 
before opening the others. So, both sets of gates were, for the 
moment, closed. 

"You'd better by far be reasonable, Bradley Headstone, Master," 
said Riderhood, passing him, " or I'll drain you all the drier for it, 
when we do settle. — Ah ! Would you ! " 

Bradley had caught him round the body. He seemed to be 
girdled with an iron ring. They were on the brink of the Lock, 
about midway between the two sets of gates. 

" Let go ! " said Riderhood, " or I'll get my knife out and slash 
you wherever I can cut you. Let go ! " 

Bradley was drawing to the Lock-edge. Riderhood was drawing 
away from it. It was a strong grapple, and a fierce struggle, arm 
and leg. Bradley got him round, with his back to the Lock, and 
still worked him backward. 

" Let go ! " said Riderhood. " Stop ! What are you trying at 1 
You can't drown Me. Ain't I told you that the man as has come 
through drowning can never be drowned 1 I can't be drowned." 

" I can be ! " returned Bradley, in a desperate, clenched voice. 
"I am resolved to be. I'll hold you living, and I'll hold you dead. 
Come down ! " 

Riderhood went over into the smooth pit, backward, and Bradley 
Headstone upon him. When the two were found, lying under the 
ooze and scum behind one of the rotting gates, Riderhood's hold 
had relaxed, probably in falling, and his eyes were staring upward. 
But he was girdled still with Bradley's iron ring, and the rivets 
of the iron ring held tight. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL. 

Mr. and Mrs. John Harmon's first delightful occupation was, 
to set all matters right that had strayed in any way wrong, or that 
might, could, would, or should, have strayed in any way wrong, while 
their name was in abeyance. In tracing out affairs for which John's 
fictitious death was to be considered in any way responsible, they 
used a very broad and free construction; regarding, for instance, 
the dolls' dressmaker as having a claim on their protection, because 
of her association with Mrs. Eugene Wrayburn, and because of 
Mrs. Eugene's old association, in her turn, with the dark side of 
the story. It followed that the old man, Riah, as a good and ser- 
viceable friend to both, was not to be disclaimed. Nor even Mr. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 771 

Inspector, as having been trepanned into an industrious hunt on a 
false scent. It may be remarked, in connection with that worthy- 
officer, that a rumour shortly afterwards pervaded the Force, to 
the effect that he had confided to Miss Abbey Potterson, over a jug 
of mellow flip in the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, that 
he "didn't stand to lose a farthing " through Mr. Harmon's coming 
to life, but was quite as well satisfied as if that gentleman had been 
barbarously murdered, and he (Mr. Inspector) had pocketed the 
government reward. 

In all their arrangements of such nature, Mr. and Mrs. John 
Harmon derived much assistance from their eminent solicitor, Mr. 
Mortimer Lightwood ; who laid about him professionally with such 
unwonted despatch and intention, that a piece of work was vigor- 
ously pursued as soon as cut out ; whereby Young Blight was acted 
on as by that transatlantic dram which is poetically named An 
Eye-Opener, and found himself staring at real clients instead of out 
of window. The accessibility of Riah proving very useful as to a 
few hints towards the disentanglement of Eugene's affairs. Light- 
wood applied himself with infinite zest to attacking and harassing 
Mr. Fledgeby ; who, discovering himself in danger of being blown 
into the air by certain explosive transactions in which he had been 
engaged, and having been sufficiently flayed under his beating, 
came to a parley and asked for quarter. The harmless Twemlow 
profited by the conditions entered into, though he little thought it. 
Mr. Riah unaccountably melted ; waited in person on him over the 
stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James's, no longer ravening but 
mild, to inform him that payment of interest as heretofore, but 
henceforth at Mr. Lightwood's offices, would appease his Jewish 
rancour ; and departed with the secret that Mr. John Harmon had 
advanced the money and become the creditor. Thus was the sub- 
lime Snigsworth's wrath averted, and thus did he snort no larger 
amount of moral grandeur at the Corinthian column in the print 
over the fireplace, than was normally in his (and the British) 
constitution. 

Mrs. Wilfer's first visit to the Mendicant's bride at the new 
abode of Mendicancy, was a grand event. Pa had been sent for 
into the City, on the very day of taking possession, and had been 
stunned with astonishment, and brought-to, and led about the 
house by one ear, to behold its various treasures, and had been 
enraptured and enchanted. Pa had also been appointed Secretary, 
and had been enjoined to give instant notice of resignation to 
Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles, for ever and ever. But Ma 
came later, and came, as was her due, in state. 



772 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

The carriage was sent for Ma, who entered it with a bearing 
worthy of the occasion, accompanied, rather than supported, by 
Miss Lavinia, who altogether declined to recognise the maternal 
majesty. Mr. George Sampson meekly followed. He was received 
in the vehicle, by Mrs. Wilfer, as if admitted to the honour of 
assisting at a funeral in the family, and she then issued the order, 
" Onward ! " to the Mendicant's menial. 

"I wish to goodness, Ma," said Lavvy, throwing herself back 
among the cushions, with her arms crossed, "that you'd loll a 
little." 

" How ! " repeated Mrs. Wilfer. " Loll ! " 

"Yes, Ma." 

" I hope," said the impressive lady, " I am incapable of it." 

" I am sure you look so, Ma. But why one should go out to 
dine with one's own daughter or sister, as if one's under-petticoat 
was a backboard, I do not understand." 

"Neither do I understand," retorted Mrs. Wilfer, with deep 
scorn, "how a young lady can mention the garment in the name 
in which you have indulged. I blush for you." 

"Thank you, Ma," said Lavvy, yawning, "but I can do it for 
myself, I am obliged to you, when there's any occasion." 

Here, Mr. Sampson, with the view of establishing harmony, 
which he never under any circumstances succeeded in doing, said 
with an agreeable smile : "After all, you know, ma'am, wx know 
it's there." And immediately felt that he had committed himself. 

" We know it's there ! " said Mrs. Wilfer, glaring. 

"Really, George," remonstrated Miss Lavinia, "I must say that 
I don't understand your allusions, and that I think you might be 
more delicate and less personal." 

" Go it ! " cried Mr. Sampson, becoming, on the shortest notice, a 
prey to despair. "Oh yes! Go it. Miss Lavinia Wilfer! " 

"What you may mean, George Sampson, by your omnibus-driv- 
ing expressions, I cannot pretend to imagine. Neither," said Miss 
Lavinia, "Mr. George Sampson, do I wish to imagine. It is 
enough for me to know in my own heart that I am not going to — " 
having imprudently got into a sentence without providing a way 
out of it, Miss Lavinia was constrained to close with " going to go 
it." A weak conclusion which, however, derived some appearance 
of strength from disdain. 

" Oh yes ! " cried Mr. Sampson, with bitterness. " Thus it ever 
is. I never " 

"If you mean to say," Miss Lawy cut him short, "that you 
never brought up a young gazelle, you may save yourself the 
trouble, because nobody in this carriage supposes that you ever 
did. We know you better." (As if this were a home-thrust.) 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 773 

"Lavinia," returned Mr. Sampson, in a dismal vein, "I did not 
mean to say so. What I did mean to say, was, that I never ex- 
pected to retain my favoured place in this family, after Fortune 
shed her beams upon it. Why do you take me," said Mr. Samp- 
son, " to the glittering halls with which I can never compete, and 
then taunt me with my moderate salary ? Is it generous 1 Is it 
kind?" 

The stately lady, Mrs. Wilfer, perceiving her opportunity of 
delivering a few remarks from the throne, here took up the 
altercation. 

"Mr. Sampson," she began, "I cannot permit you to misrepre- 
sent the intentions of a child of mine." 

"Let him alone, Ma," Miss Lavvy interposed with haughtiness. 
"It is indifferent to me what he says or does." 

" Nay, Lavinia," quoth Mrs. Wilfer, " this touches the blood of 
the family. If Mr. George Sampson attributes, even to my 
youngest daughter " 

("I don't see why you should use the word 'even,' Ma," Miss 
Lavvy interposed, "because I am quite as important as any of the 
others.") 

" Peace ! " said Mrs. Wilfer, solemnly. " I repeat, if Mr. George 
Sampson attributes, to my youngest daughter, grovelling motives, 
he attributes them equally to the mother of my youngest daughter. 
That mother repudiates them, and demands of Mr. George Samp- 
son, as a youth of honour, what he ivould have 1 I may be mis- 
taken — nothing is more likely — but Mr. George Sampson," 
proceeded Mrs. Wilfer, majestically waving her gloves, "appears 
to me to be seated in a first-class equipage. Mr. George Sampson 
appears to me to be on his way, by his own admission, to a resi- 
dence that may be termed Palatial. Mr. George Sampson appears 
to me to be invited to participate in the — shall I say the — Ele- 
vation which has descended on tlie family with which he is ambi- 
tious, shall I say to Mingle? Whence, then, this tone on Mr. 
Sampson's part ? " 

"It is only, ma'am," Mr. Sampson explained, in exceedingly low 
spirits, "because, in a pecuniary sense, I am painfully conscious of 
my unworthiness. Lavinia is now highly connected. Can I hope 
that she will still remain the same Lavinia as of old ? And is it 
not pardonable if I feel sensitive, when I see a disposition on her 
part to take me up short ? " 

" If you are not satisfied with your position, sir," observed Miss 
Lavinia, with much politeness, " we can set you down at any turn- 
ing you may please to indicate to my sister's coachman." 

"Dearest Lavinia," urged Mr. Sampson, pathetically, "I adore 
you." 



774 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

"Then if you can't do it in a more agreeable manner," returned 
the young lady, " I wish you wouldn't." 

"I also," pursued Mr. Sampson, "respect you, ma'am, to an 
extent which must ever be below your merits, I am well aware, but 
still up to an uncommon mark. Bear with a wretch, Lavinia, bear 
with a wretch, ma'am, who feels the noble sacrifices you make for 
him, but is goaded almost to madness" — Mr. Sampson slapped 
his forehead — " when he thinks of competing with the rich and 
influential." 

" When you have to compete with the rich and influential, it will 
probably be mentioned to you," said Miss Lavvy, "in good time. 
At least, it will if the case is my case." 

Mr. Sampson immediately expressed his fervent opinion that this 
was " more than human," and was brought upon his knees at Miss 
Lavinia's feet. 

It was the crowning addition indispensable to the full enjoyment 
of both mother and daughter, to bear Mr. Sampson, a grateful 
captive, into the glittering halls he had mentioned, and to parade 
him through the same, at once a living witness of their glory, and 
a bright instance of their condescension. Ascending the staircase, 
Miss Lavinia permitted him to walk at her side, with the air of 
saying: "Notwithstanding all these surroundings, lam yours as 
yet, George. How long it may last is another question, but I am 
yours as yet." She also benignantly intimated to him, aloud, the 
nature of the objects upon which he looked, and to which he was 
unaccustomed: as, "Exotics, George," "An aviary, George," "An 
ormulu clock, George," and the like. While through the whole of 
the decorations, Mrs. Wilfer led the way with the bearing of a 
Savage Chief, who would feel himself compromised by manifesting 
the slightest token of surprise or admiration. 

Indeed, the bearing of this impressive woman, throughout the 
day, was a pattern to all impressive women under similar circum- 
stances. She renewed the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Bofiin, as 
if Mr. and Mrs. Boflin had said of her what she had said of them, 
and as if Time alone could quite wear her injury out. She regarded 
every servant who approached her, as her sworn enemy, expressly 
intending to offer her afl'ronts with the dishes, and to pour forth 
outrages on her moral feelings from the decanters. She sat erect 
at table, on the right hand of her son-in-law, as half suspecting 
poison in the viands, and as bearing uj) with native force of char- 
acter against other deadly ambushes. Her carriage towards Bella 
was as a carriage towards a young lady of good position whom she 
had met in society a few years ago. Even when, slightly thawing 
under the influence of sparkling champagne, she related to her son- 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 775 

in-law some passages of domestic interest concerning her papa, she 
infused into the narrative such Arctic suggestions of her having 
been an unappreciated blessing to mankind, since her papa's days, 
and also of that gentleman's having been a frosty impersonation of 
a frosty race, as struck cold to the very soles of the feet of the 
hearers. The Inexhaustible being produced, staring, and evidently 
intending a weak and washy smile shortly, no sooner beheld her, 
than it was stricken spasmodic and inconsolable. When she took 
her leave at last, it would have been hard to say whether it was 
with the air of going to the scaffold herself, or of leaving the in- 
mates of the house for immediate execution. Yet, John Harmon 
enjoyed it all merrily, and told his wife, when he and she were 
alone, that her natural ways had never seemed so dearly natural as 
beside this foil, and that although he did not dispute her being her 
father's daughter, he should ever remain steadfast in the faith that 
she could not be her mother's. 

This visit was, as has been said, a great event. Another event, 
not grand, but deemed in the house a special one, occurred at about 
the same period ; and this was, the first interview between Mr. Sloppy 
and Miss Wren. 

The dolls' dressmaker, being at work for the Inexhaustible upon 
a full-dressed doll some two sizes larger than that young person, 
Mr. Sloppy undertook to call for it, and did so. 

" Come in, sir," said Miss Wren, who was werking at her bench. 
" And who may you be ? " 

Mr. Sloppy introduced himself by name and buttons. 

" Oh indeed ! " cried Jenny. " Ah ! I have been looking forward 
to knowing you. I heard of your distinguishing yourself." 

"Did you. Miss?" grinned Sloppy. "I am sure I am glad to 
hear it, but I don't know how." 

" Pitching somebody into a mud-cart," said Miss Wren. 

"Oh ! That way ! " cried Sloppy. "Yes, Miss." And threw 
back his head and laughed, 

"Bless lis ! " exclaimed Miss Wren, with a start. "Don't open 
your mouth as wide as that, young man, or it'll catch so, and not 
shut again some day." 

Mr. Sloppy opened it, if possible, wider, and kept it open until 
his laugh was out. 

"Why, you're like the giant," said Miss Wren, "when he came 
home in the land of Beanstalk, and wanted Jack for supper." 

" Was he good-looking. Miss 1 " asked Sloppy. 

" No," said Miss Wren. " Ugly." 

Her visitor glanced round the room — which had many comforts 



77C OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

in it now, that had not been in it before — and said : "This is a 
pretty place, Miss." 

"Glad you think so, sir," returned Miss Wren. "And what do 
you think of Me ? " 

The honesty of Mr. Sloppy being severely taxed by the question, 
he twisted a button, grinned, and faltered. 

" Out with it ! " said Miss Wren, with an arch look. " Don't 
you think rae a queer little comicality 1 " In shaking her head at 
him after asking the question, she shook her hair down. 

"Oh !" cried Sloppy, in a burst of admiration. "What a lot, 
and what a colour ! " 

Miss Wren, with her usual expressive hitch, went on with her 
work. But, left her hair as it was ; not displeased by the effect it 
had made. 

"You don't live here alone; do you. Miss?" asked Sloppy. 

" No," said Miss Wren, with a chop. " Live here with my fairy 
godmother." 

" With ; " Mr. Sloppy couldn't make it out ; " with who did you 
say, Miss ? " 

" Well ! " replied Miss Wren, more seriously. " With my second 
father. Or with my first, for that matter." And she shook her 
head, and drew a sigh. " If you had known a poor child I used 
to have here," she added, "you'd have understood me. But you 
didn't, and you can't. All the better ! " 

" You must have been taught a long time," said Sloppy, glancing 
at the array of dolk in hand, "before you came to work so neatly, 
Miss, and with such a pretty taste." 

" Never was taught a stitch, young man ! " returned the dress- 
maker, tossing her head. " Just gobbled and gobbled, till I found 
out how to do it. Badly enough at first, but better now." 

"And here have I," said Sloppy, in something of a self-reproach- 
ful tone, "been a learning and a learning, and here has Mr. Boffin 
been a paying and a paying, ever so long ! " 

"I have heard what your trade is," observed Miss Wren; "it's 
cabinet making." 

Mr. Sloppy nodded. " Now that the Mounds is done with, it 
is. I'll tell you what. Miss. I should like to make you some- 
thing." 

" Much obliged. But what ? " 

"I could make you," said Sloppy, surveying the room, "I could 
make you a handy set of nests to lay the dolls in. Or I could 
make you a handy little set of drawers, to keep your silks and 
threads and scraps in. Or I could turn you a rare handle for that 
crutch-stick, if it belongs to him you call your fiither." 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 777 

"It belongs to me," returned the little creature, with a quick 
flush of her face and neck. " I am lame." 

Poor Sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive delicacy 
behind his buttons, and his own hand had struck it. He said, 
perhaps, the best thing in the way of amends that could be said, 
"I am very glad it's yours, because I'd rather ornament it for you 
than for any one else. Please may I look at it ? " 

Miss Wren was in the act of handing it to him over her bench, 
when she paused. "But you had better see me use it," she said, 
sharply. "This is the way. Hoppetty, Kicketty, Peg-peg-peg. 
Not pretty ; is it ? " 

"It seems to me that you hardly want it at all," said Sloppy. 

The little dressmaker sat down again, and gave it into his hand, 
saying, with that better look upon her, and with a smile : "Thank 
you ! " 

"And as concerning the nests and drawers," said Sloppy, after 
measuring the handle on his sleeve, and softly standing the stick 
aside against the wall, " why, it would be a real pleasure to me. 
I've heerd tell that you can sing most beautiful ; and I should 
be better paid with a song than with any money, for I always 
loved the likes of that, and often giv' Mrs. Higden and Johnny a 
comic song myself, with ' Spoken ' in it. Though that's not your 
sort, I'll wager." 

"You are a very kind young man," returned the dressmaker, 
" a really kind young man. I accept your off'er. — I suppose He 
won't mind," she added as an afterthought, shrugging her shoulders ; 
" and if he does, he may ! " 

"Meaning him that you call your father. Miss?" asked Sloppy. 

" No, no," replied Miss Wren. " Him, Him, Him ! " 

" Him, him, him ? " repeated Sloppy ; staring about, as if for 
Him. 

" Him who is coming to court and marry me," returned Miss 
Wren. " Dear me, how slow you are ! " 

" Oh ! Himf^^ said Sloppy. And seemed to turn thoughtful and 
a little troubled. " I never thought of him. When is he coming, 
Miss?" 

" What a question ! " cried Miss Wren. " How should / know ! " 

" Where is he coming from. Miss ? " 

" Why, good gracious, how can / tell ! He is coming from some- 
where or other, I suppose, and he is coming some day or other, I 
suppose. / don't know any more about him, at present." 

This tickled Mr. Sloppy as an extraordinarily good joke, and he 
threw back his head and laughed with measureless enjoyment. At 
the sight of him laughing in that absurd way, the dolls' dressmaker 



778 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

laughed very heartily indeed. So they both lauglied, till they were 
tired. 

" There, there, there ! " said Miss Wren. " For goodness' sake 
stop, Giant, or I shall be swallowed up alive, before I know it. 
And to this minute you haven't said what you've come for." 

" I have come for little Miss Harmonses doll," said Sloppy. 

"I thought as much," remarked Miss Wren, "and here is little 
Miss Harmonses doll waiting for you. She's folded up in silver 
paper, you see, as if she was wrapped from head to foot in new 
Bank notes. Take care of her, and there's my hand, and thank 
you again." 

"I'll take more care of her than if she was a gold image," said 
Sloppy, " and there's both my hands, Miss, and I'll soon come back 
again." 

But, the greatest event of all, in the new life of Mr. and Mrs. 
John Harmon, was a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Wrayburn. 
Sadly wan and worn was the once gallant Eugene, and walked rest- 
ing on his wife's arm, and leaning heavily upon a stick. But, he 
was daily growing stronger and better, and it was declared by the 
medical attendants that he might not be much disfigured by-and-bye. 
It was a grand event, indeed, when Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Wrayburn 
came to stay at Mr. and Mrs. John Harmon's house : where, by 
the way, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin (exquisitely happy, and daily cruising 
about, to look at shops) were likewise staying indefinitely. 

To Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, in confidence, did Mrs. John Harmon 
impart what she had known of the state of his wife's aff'ections, in 
his reckless time. And to Mrs. John Harmon, in confidence, did 
Mr. Eugene Wrayburn impart that, please God, she should see how 
his wife had changed him ! 

"I make no protestations," said Eugene; " — who does, who 
means them! — I have made a resolution." 

"But would you believe, Bella," interposed his wife, coming to 
resume her nurse's place at his side, for he never got on well with- 
out her : " that on our wedding day he told me he almost thought 
the best thing he could do, was to die % " 

" As I didn't do it, Lizzie," said Eugene, " I'll do that better 
thing you suggested — for your sake." 

That same afternoon, Eugene lying on his couch in his own room 
up-stairs, Lightwood came to chat with him, while Bella took his 
wife out for a ride. " Nothing short of force will make her go," 
Eugene had said ; so, Bella had playfully forced her. 

" Dear old fellow," Eugene began with Lightwood, reaching up 
his hand, "you couldn't have come at a better time, for my mind 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 779 

is full, and I want to empty it. First, of my present, before I 
touch upon my future. M. R. F., who is a much younger cavalier 
than I, and a professed admirer of beauty, was so affable as to 
remark the other day (he paid us a ^dsit of two days up the river 
there, and much objected to the accommodation of the hotel), that 
Lizzie ought to have her portrait painted. Which, coming from 
M. R. F., may be considered equivalent to a melodramatic blessing." 

"You are getting well," said Mortimer, with a smile. 

" Really," said Eugene, " I mean it. When M. R. F. said that, 
and followed it up by rolling the claret (for which he called, and I 
paid) in his mouth, and saying, ' My dear son, why do you drink 
this trash 1 ' it was tantamount — in him — to a paternal benedic- 
tion on our union, accompanied with a gush of tears. The coolness 
of M. R. F. is not to be measured by ordinary standards." 

"True enough," said Lightwood. 

"That's all," pursued Eugene, "that I shall ever hear from 
M. R. F. on the subject, and he will continue to saunter through the 
world with his hat on one side. My marriage being thus solemnly 
recognised at the family altar, I have no further trouble on that 
score. Next, you really have done wonders for me, Mortimer, in 
easing my money perplexities, and with such a guardian and 
steward beside me, as the preserver of my life (I am hardly strong 
yet, you see, for I am not man enough to refer to her without a 
trembling voice — she is so inexpressibly dear to me, Mortimer !) 
the little that I can call my own will he more than it ever has 
been. It need be more, for you know what it always has been in 
my hands. Nothing." 

" Worse than nothing, I fancy, Eugene. My own small income 
(I devoutly wish that my grandfather had left it to the Ocean rather 
than to me !) has been an effective Something, in the way of pre- 
venting me from turning to at Anything. And I think yours has 
been much the same." 

"There spake the voice of wisdom," said Eugene. "We are 
shepherds both. In turning to at last, we turn to in eai-nest. 
Let us say no more of that, for a few years to come. Now, I 
have had an idea, Mortimer, of taking myself and my wife to one 
of the colonies, and working at my vocation there." 

" I should be lost without you, Eugene ; but you may be right." 

" No," said Eugene, emphatically. " Not right. Wrong ! " 

He said it with such a lively — almost angry — flash, that Mor- 
timer showed himself greatly surprised. 

"You think this thumped head of mine is excited?" Eugene 
went on, with a high look; "not so, believe me. I can say to 
you of the healthful music of my pulse what Hamlet said of his. 



780 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

My blood is up, but Avliolesomely up, wheu I think of it ! Tell 
me ! Shall I turn coward to Lizzie, and sneak away with her, as 
if I were ashamed of her ! Where would your friend's part in 
this world be, Mortimer, if she had turned coward to him, and on 
immeasurably better occasion 1 " 

"Honourable and stanch," said Lightwood. "And yet, Eugene 



" And yet what, Mortimer ? " 

" And yet, are you sure that you might not feel (for her sake, I 
say for her sake) any slight coldness towards her on the part of — 
Society?" 

" Oh ! You and I may well stumble at the word," returned 
Eugene, laughing. " Do we mean our Tippins 1 " 

"Perhaps we do," said Mortimer, laughing also. 

" Faith, we do ! " returned Eugene, with great animation. " We 
may hide behind the bush and beat about it, but we do. Now, my 
wife is something nearer to my heart, Mortimer, than Tippins is, 
and I owe her a little more than I owe to Tippins, and I am rather 
prouder of her than I ever was of Tippins. Therefore, I will fight 
it out to the last gasp, with her and for her, here, in the open field. 
When I hide her, or strike for her, faint-heartedly, in a hole or a 
corner, do you, whom I love next best upon earth, tell me what I 
shall most righteously deserve to be told : — that she would have 
done well to have turned me over with her foot that night when I 
lay bleeding to death, and to have spat in my dastard face." 

The glow that shone upon him as he spoke the words, so irradi- 
ated his features, that he looked, for the time, as though he had 
never been mutilated. His friend responded as Eugene would 
have had him respond, and they discoursed of the future, until 
Lizzie came back. After resuming her place at his side, and ten- 
derly touching his hands and his head, she said : 

"Eugene, dear, you made me go out, but I ought to have stayed 
with you. You are more flushed than you have been for many 
days. What have you been doing ? " 

"Nothing," replied Eugene, "but looking forward to your com- 
ing back." 

" And talking to Mr. Lightwood," said Lizzie, turning to him with 
a smile. " But it cannot have been Society that disturbed you." 

" Faith, my dear love ! " retorted Eugene, in his old airy manner, 
as he laughed and kissed her, "I rather think it 2vas Society 
though ! " 

The word ran so much in Mortimer Light wood's thoughts as he 
went home to the Temple that night, that he resolved to take a 
look at Society, which he had not seen for a considerable period. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 781 

CHAPTER THE LAST. 

THE VOICE OF SOCIETY. 

Behoves Mortimer Lightwood, therefore, to answer a dinner 
card from Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, requesting the honour, and to 
signify that Mr. Mortimer Lightwood will be happy to have the 
other honour. The Veneerings have been, as usual, indefatigably 
dealing dinner cards to Society, and whoever desires to take a 
hand had best be quick about it, for it is written in the Books of 
the Insolvent Fates that Veneering shall make a resounding smash 
next week. Yes. Having found out the clue to that great mys- 
tery how people can contrive to live beyond their means, and hav- 
ing over-jobbed his jobberies as legislator deputed to the Universe 
by the pure electors of Pocket Breeches, it shall come to pass next 
week that Veneering will accept the Chiltern Hundreds, that the 
legal gentleman in Britannia's confidence will again accept the 
Pocket Breeches Thousands, and that the Veneerings will retire to 
Calais, there to live on Mrs. Veneering's diamonds (in which Mr. 
Veneering, as a good .husband, has from time to time invested con- 
siderable sums), and to relate to Neptune and others, how that, 
before Veneering retired from Parliament, the House of Commons 
was composed of himself and the six hundred and fifty-seven dear- 
est and oldest friends he had in the world. It shall likewise come 
to pass, at as nearly as possible the same period, that Society will 
discover that it always did despise Veneering, and distrust Veneer- 
ing, and that when it went to Veneering's to dinner it always had 
misgivings — though very secretly at the time, it would seem, and 
in a perfectly private and confidential manner. 

The next week's books of the Insolvent Fates, however, being 
not yet opened, there is the usual rush to the Veneerings, of the 
people who go to their house to dine with one another and not 
with them. There is Lady Tippins. There are Podsnap the 
Great, and Mrs. Podsnap. There is Twemlow. There are Buff'er, 
Boots, and Brewer. There is the Contractor, who is Providence 
to five hundred thousand men. There is the Chairman, travelling 
three thousand miles per week. There is the brilliant genius who 
turned the shares into that remarkably exact sum of three hundred 
and seventy-five thousand pounds, no shillings, and nopence. 

To whom, add Mortimer Lightwood, coming in among them 
with a resumption of his old languid air, founded on Eugene, and 
belonging to the days when he told the story of the man from 
Somewhere. 

That fresh fairy, Tippins, all but screams at sight of her false 



782 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

swain. She summons the deserter to her with her fan ; but the 
deserter, predetermined not to come, talks Britain with Podsnap. 
Podsnap always talks Britain, and talks as if he were a sort of 
Private Watchman employed, in the British interests, against the 
rest of the world. "We know what Russia means, sir," says 
Podsnap; "we know what France wants; we see what America 
is up to; but we know what England is. That's enough for us." 

However, when dinner is served, and Lightwood drops into his 
old place over against Lady Tippins, she can be fended off no 
longer. "Long banished Robinson Crusoe," says the charmer, 
exchanging salutations, " how did you leave the Island ? " 

"Thank you," says Lightwood. "It made no complaint of 
being in pain anywhere." 

" Say, how did you leave the savages ? " asks Lady Tippins. 

"They were becoming civilised when I left Juan Fernandez," 
says Lightwood. " At least they were eating one another, which 
looked like it." 

"Tormentor!" returns the dear young creature. "You know 
what I mean, and you trifle with my impatience. Tell me some- 
thing, immediately, about the married pair. You were at the 
wedding." 

"Was I, by-the-bye?" Mortimer pretends, at great leisure, to 
consider. " So I was ! " 

" How was the bride dressed ? In rowing costume ? " 

Mortimer looks gloomy, and declines to answer. 

" I hope she steered herself, skiff'ed herself, paddled herself, lar- 
boarded and starboarded herself, or whatever the technical term 
may be, to the ceremony 1 " proceeds the playful Tippins. 

" However she got to it, she graced it," says Mortimer. 

Lady Tippins with a skittish little scream, attracts the general 
attention. "Graced it! Take care of me if I faint. Veneering. 
He means to tell us, that a horrid female waterman is graceful ! " 

"Pardon me. I mean to tell you nothing. Lady Tipj^ins," 
replies Lightwood. And keeps his word by eating his dinner with 
a show of the utmost indifference. 

"You shall not escape me in this way, you morose backwoods- 
man," retorts Lady Tippins. " You shall not evade the question, 
to screen your friend Eugene, who has made this exhibition of 
himself. The knowledge shall be brought home to you that such 
a ridiculous affair is condemned by the voice of Society. My dear 
Mrs. Veneering, do let us resolve ourselves into a Committee of the 
whole House on the subject." 

Mrs. Veneering, ahvays charmed by this rattling sylph, cries: 
" Oh yes ! Do let us resolve ourselves into a Committee of the 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 783 

whole House ! So delicious ! " Veneering says, " As many as are 
of that opinion, say Aye, — contrary, No — the Ayes have it." 
But nobody takes the slightest notice of his joke. 

" Now, I am Chairwoman of Committees ! " cries Lady Tippins. 

(" What spirits she has ! " exclaims Mrs. Veneering ; to whom 
likewise nobody attends.) 

"And this," pursues the sprightly one, "is a Committee of the 
whole House to what-you-may-call-it — elicit, I suppose — the voice 
of Society. The question before the Committee is, whether a young 
man of very fair family, good appearance, and some talent, makes 
a fool or a wise man of himself in marrying a female waterman, 
turned factory girl." 

" Hardly so, I think," the stubborn Mortimer strikes in. "I 
take the question to be, whether such a man as you describe, Lady 
Tippins, does right or wrong in marrying a brave woman (I say 
nothing of her beauty), who has saved his life, with a wonderful 
energy and address ; whom he knows to be virtuous, and possessed 
of remarkable qualities ; whom he has long admired, and who is 
deeply attached to hiixi." 

" But, excuse me," says Podsnap, with his temper and his shirt- 
collar about equally rumpled; "was this young woman ever a 
female waterman ? " 

" Never. But she sometimes rowed in a boat with her father, 
I believe." 

General sensation against the young woman. Brewer shakes his 
head. Boots shakes his head. Buffer shakes his head. 

"And now, Mr. Lightwood, was she ever," pursues Podsnap, 
with his indignation rising high into those hair-brushes of his, 
" a factory girl ? " 

" Never. But she had some employment in a paper mill, I be- 
lieve." General sensation repeated. Brewer says, " Oh dear ! " 
Boots says, " Oh dear ! " Buffer says, " Oh dear ! " All, in a 
rumbling tone of protest. 

" Then all / have to say is," returns Podsnap, putting the thing 
away with his right arm, " that my gorge rises against such a mar- 
riage — that it offends and disgusts me — that it makes me sick — 
and that I desire to know no more about it." 

(" Now I wonder," thinks Mortimer, amused, "whether you are 
the Voice of Society ! ") 

" Hear, hear, hear ! " cries Lady Tippins. " Your opinion of 
this mesalliance, honourable colleague of the honourable member 
who has just sat down ? " 

Mrs. Podsnap is of opinion that in these matters " there should 
be an equality of station and fortune, and that a man accustomed 



784 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

to Society should look out for a woman accustomed to Society 
and capable of bearing her part in it with — an ease and elegance 
of carriage — that." Mrs. Podsnap stops there, delicately intimat- 
ing that every such man should look out for a fine woman as nearly 
resembling herself as he may hope to discover. 

("Now I wonder," thinks Mortimer, "whether you are the 
Voice ! ") 

Lady Tippins next canvasses the Contractor, of five hundred 
thousand power. It appears to this potentate, that what the man 
in question should have done, would have been, to buy the young 
woman a boat and a small annuity, and set her up for herself. 
These things are a question of beefsteaks and porter. You buy 
the young woman a boat. Very good. You buy her, at the same 
time, a small annuity. You speak of that annuity in pounds 
sterling, but it is in reality so many pounds of beefsteaks and so 
many pints of porter. On the one hand, the young woman has the 
boat. On the other hand, she consumes so many pounds of beef- 
steaks and so many pints of porter. Those beefsteaks and that 
porter are the fuel to that young woman's engine. She derives 
therefrom a certain amount of power to row the boat ; that power 
will produce so much money ; you add that to the small annuity ; 
and thus you get at the young woman's income. That (it seems 
to the Contractor) is the way of looking at it. 

The fair enslaver having fallen into one of her gentle sleeps dur- 
ing this last exposition, nobody likes to wake her. Fortunately, 
she comes awake of herself, and puts the question to the Wander- 
ing Chairman. The Wanderer can only speak of the case as if it 
were his own. If such a young woman as the young woman de- 
scribed, had saved his own life, he would have been very much 
obliged to her, wouldn't have married her, and would have got her 
a berth in an Electric Telegraph Office, where young women answer 
very well. 

What does the Genius of the three hundred and seventy-five 
thousand pounds, no shillings, and nopence, think ? He can't say 
what he thinks, without asking : Had the young woman any money? 

" No," says Lightwood, in an uncompromising voice : " no money." 

" Madness and moonshine," is then the compressed verdict of the 
Genius. " A man may do anything lawful, for money. But for 
no money ! — Bosh ! " 

What does Boots say % 

Boots says he wouldn't have done it under twenty thousand 
pounds. 

What does Brewer say % 

Brewer says' what Boots says 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 785 

What does Buffer say ? 

Buffer says he knows a man who married a bathing-woman, and 
bolted. 

Lady Tippins fancies she has collected the suffrages of the whole 
Committee (nobody dreaming of asking the Veneerings for their 
opinion), when, looking round the table through her eye-glass, she 
perceives Mr. Twemlow with his hand to his forehead. 

Good gracious ! My Twemlow forgotten ! My dearest ! My 
own ! What is his vote ? 

Twemlow has the air of being ill at ease, as he takes his hand 
from his forehead and replies. "I am disposed to think," says he, 
" that this is a question of the feelings of a gentleman." 

" A gentleman can have no feelings who contracts such a mar- 
riage," flushes Podsnap. 

" Pardon me, sir," says Twemlow, rather less mildly than usual, 
" I don't agree with you. If this gentleman's feelings of gratitude, 
of respect, of admiration, and aftection, induced him (as I presume 
they did) to marry this lady " 

" This lady ! " eclioes Podsnap. 

"Sir," returns Twemlow, with his wristbands bristling a little, 
"yow repeat the word; / repeat the word. This lady. What 
else would you call her, if the gentleman were present 1 " 

This being something in the nature of a poser for Podsnap, he 
merely waves it away with a speechless wave. 

" I say," resumes Twemlow, " if such feelings on the part of this 
gentleman, induced this gentleman to marry this lady, I think he 
is the greater gentleman for the action, and makes her the greater 
lady. I beg to say, that when I use the word, gentleman, I use it 
in the sense in which the degree may be attained by any man. 
The feelings of a gentleman I hold sacred, and I confess I am not 
comfortable when they are made the subject of sport or general 
discussion." 

"I should like to know," sneers Podsnap, "whether your noble 
relation would be of your opinion." 

"Mr. Podsnap," retorts Twemlow, "permit me. He might be, 
or he might not be. I cannot say. But, I could not allow even 
him to dictate to me on a point of great delicacy, on which I feel 
very strongly." 

Somehow, a canopy of wet blanket seems to descend upon the 
company, and Lady Tippins was never known to turn so very 
greedy, or so very cross. Mortimer Lightwood alone brightens. 
He has been asking himself, as to every other member of the Com- 
mittee in turn, " I wonder whether you are the Voice ! " But he 
does not ask himself the question after Twemlow has spoken, and 

3e 



786 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

he glances in Twenilow's direction as if he were grateful. When 
the company disperse — by which time Mr. and Mrs. Veneering 
have had quite as much as they want of the honour, and the guests 
have had quite as much as they want of the other honour — Mor- 
timer sees Twemlow home, shakes hands with him cordially at 
parting, and fares to the Temj^le, gaily. 



POSTSCRIPT, 



IN LIEU OF PREFACE. 



When I devised this story, I foresaw the likelihood that a class 
of readers and commentators would supj^ose that I was at great 
pains to conceal exactly what I was at great pains to suggest : 
namely, that Mr. John Harmon was not slain, and that Mr. John 
Rokesmith was he. Pleasing myself with the idea that the suppo- 
sition might in part arise out of some ingenuity in the story, and 
thinking it worth while, in the interests of art, to hint to an audi- 
ence that an artist (of whatever denomination) may perhaps be 
trusted to know what he is about in his vocation, if they will con- 
cede him a little patience, I was not alarmed by the anticipation. 

To keep for a long time unsuspected, yet always working itself 
out, another purpose originating in that leading incident, and turn- 
ing it to a pleasant and useful account at last, was at once the 
most interesting and the most difficult part of my design. Its 
difficulty was much enhanced by the mode of publication ; for, it 
would be very unreasonable to expect that many readers, pursuing 
a story in portions from month to month through nineteen months, 
will, until they have it before them complete, perceive the rela- 
tions of its finer threads to the whole pattern which is always before 
the eyes of the story weaver at his loom. Yet, that I hold the 
advantages of the mode of publication to outweigh its disadvan- 
tages, may be easily believed of one who revived it in the Pickwick 
Papers after long disuse, and has pursued it ever since. 

There is sometimes an odd disposition in this country to dispute 
as improbable in fiction, what are the commonest experiences in 
foct. Therefore, I note here, though it may not be at all neces- 
sary, that there are hundreds of Will Cases (as they are called), 
far more remarkable than that fancied in this book ; and that the 
stores of the Prerogative Office teem with instances of testators who 
have made, changed, contradicted, hidden, forgotten, left cancelled, 
and left uncancelled, each many more wills thtui were ever mad(^ 
by the elder Mr. Harmon of Harmony Jail. 

787 



788 POSTSCRIPT. 

In my social experiences since Mrs. Betty Higden came upon 
the scene and left it, I have found Circumlocutional champions 
disposed to be warm with me on the subject of my view of the 
Poor Law. My friend Mr. Bounderby could never see any differ- 
ence between leaving the Coketown " hands " exactly as they were, 
and requiring them to be fed with turtle soup and venison out of 
gold spoons. Idiotic propositions of a parallel nature have been 
freely offered for my acceptance, and I have been called upon to 
admit that I would give Poor Law relief to anybody, anywhere, 
anyhow. Putting this nonsense aside, I have observed a suspicious 
tendency in the champions to divide into two parties; the one, 
contending that there are no deserving Poor who prefer death by 
slow starvg-tion and bitter weather, to the mercies of some Reliev- 
ing Officers and some Union Houses; the other, admitting that 
there are such Poor, but denying that they have any cause or rea- 
son for what they do. The records in our newspapers, the late 
exposure by The Lancet, and the common sense and senses of 
common people, furnish too abundant evidence against both de- 
fences. But, that my view of the Poor Law may not be mistaken 
or misrepresented, I will state it. I beheve there has been in Eng- 
land, since the days of the Stuarts, no law so often infamously 
administered, no law so often openly violated, no law habitually so 
ill-supervised. In the majority of the shameful cases of disease 
and death from destitution, that shock the Public and disgrace the 
country, the illegality is quite equal to the inhumanity — and 
known language could say no more of their lawlessness. 

On Friday the Ninth of June in the present year, Mr. and Mrs. 
Boffin (in tlieir manuscript dress of receiving Mr. and Mrs. Lammle 
at breakfost) were on the South-Eastern Railway with me, in a 
terribly destructive accident. When I had done what I could to 
help others, I climbed back into my carriage - — nearly turned over 
a viaduct, and caught aslant upon the turn — to extricate the 
worthy couple. They were much soiled, but otherwise unhurt. 
The same happy result attended Miss Bella Wilfer on licr wed- 
ding day, and Mr. Riderhood inspecting Bradley Headstone's red 
neckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout thankful- 
ness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my 
readers for ever, than I was then, until there shall be written 
against my life, the two words with which I have this day closed 
tins book : — The End. 

September 2nd, 1865. 



THE NOVELS OF CHARLES DICKENS. 

New Edition, with all the Original Illustrations. 

i2ino. Cloth. $1.00 each volume. 

These volumes are in all cases accurate reprints ©f the texts of the first editions, 
and are accompanied by all the original illustrations. There is also prefixed in each 
volume a short introduction written by Mr. Charles Dickens, the novelist's eldest 
son, giving a history of the writing and publication of each book, together with 
other details, biographical and bibliographical, likely to be of interest to the reader- 



NOW 

THE PICKWICK PAPERS. 

50 Illustrations. 

OLIVER TWIST. 

27 Illustrations. 

NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 

44 Illustrations. 

MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. 

41 Illustrations. 

THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 

97 Illustrations. 

BARNABY RUDGE. 

76 Illustrations. 

SKETCHES BY BOZ. 

44 Illustrations. 

GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



READY. 

DOMBEY AND SON. 

40 Illustrations. 
CHRISTMAS BOOKS. 

65 Illustrations. 
DAVID COPPERFIELD. 

41 Illustrations. 
AMERICAN NOTES and PIC- 
TURES FROM ITALY. 

4 Illustrations. 

LETTERS. 1 833-1 870. 

LITTLE DORRIT. 

BLEAK HOUSE. 

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 



CHRISTMAS STORIES. 

AMERICAN NOTES and RE- 
PRINTED PIECES. 

HARD TIMES and PICTURES 
FROM ITALY. 

TALE OF TWO CITIES. 



To BE FOLLOWED BY 

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENG- 
LAND. 

UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVEL- 
LER. 



EDWIN DROOD, AND OTHER 
STORIES. 



MACMILLAN & CO., 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 



LE S '08 



